Tuesday, April 12, 2016

THE CHALLENGE OF LIVING BY FAITH

You realize that you and I are called to walk on water, right?  Oh, I don't mean the H2O kind as did Jesus (and Peter for a few steps).  I speak of you and me walking across the very things in life that promise to sink us...probably drown us.

The concept of faith has been maligned and suppressed just as has the word love.  How many think of the term love--as in we need to love better--as a rather anemic trait which tends to be more poetic than empowering?  I wonder if faith has not taken on similar misdirection.  Has this intended mega-power issued from God become a mere step in a plan of salvation or Sunday School rhetoric which carries little weight?

The challenge of living by faith is that it actually does its stuff when there is no human reason as to why there should be any hope.  Faith isn't for sissies.  It's robust, daring, and quite nervy.  Faith thinks that things that are not, yet, can become.  Believing includes noting that what issues or circumstances may promise that death has conquered (like...a grave) have no essential power.

I am faced with the wrestling of this matter day by day.  How is it that I am to actually have hope when there seems to be none?  This is most intimidating...for all of us.  By nature, we tend to take our lead from watching others; their strengths, vulnerabilities, successes, etc.  However, our Leader (the one who conquered legalism, doubters, and death) takes us into zones of unpredictability as well as unexperienced challenges.

It is here that we find ourselves in a dilemma.  Our vision so wishes to look back; find someone or some thing that assures us that we are on stable ground.  But our Rock is Jesus; not a colleague's success or failure.

The challenge of living by faith is that it will necessarily include taking us into uncharted waters of potential and possibility.  At these moments we must decide for ourselves whether we will walk upon these waters or stand on the shoreline and fretfully wish.

No comments: