FAITH ISN'T SPELLED B-L-A-C-K-A-N-D-W-H-I-T-E

Faith isn't for sissies.  It is that deep inner conviction that things we cannot see are actually in existence.  Faith is assurance.  Assurance would be the force of our need to know for sure when there seems to be nothing physical nor rational to verify.

Humanity is challenged at our deepest senses over this matter of faith.  It isn't logical.  It won't bow to one's strongest calculations.  Faith defies the god of human reason.  It is mystery in it's fullest term.

Brene' Brown agrees.  Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.  

She follows quickly, I also learned that it's not always the scientists who struggle with faith and the religious who fully embrace uncertainty.  Many forms of fundamentalism and extremism are about choosing certainty over faith.

Fundamentalism and extremism are always roaming the halls of our camps.  These two have the loudest bark and impose the strongest threat.  They are church bullies.  These two culprits live to intimidate tender believers who would otherwise break free into a zone of brave devotion to the wild call of God.

Faith isn't black and white.  It comes with uncertain and even blurred lines.  Mystery is....mystery.  It isn't charted.  Neither is it explained, tested, nor provable.  In the territory of faith we are often called by God to simply believe because He said so.  (Hmmm...brings back the frequent words of my mother when I was a child.)

Faith is all around.  We all have it.  Regarding God, one either has the faith He exists or else the faith that He doesn't.  Believers' conclusions are based on search of the Word of God.  In that sentence alone is surely long-range mystery.  Doubters don't buy into such silliness (to them).  Yet, I believe, these do so without realizing they have no evidence, proof, nor verification for their stance.

Faith isn't spelled B-L-A-C-K-A-N-D-W-H-I-T-E.  It is spelled M-Y-S-T-E-R-Y.  Each is free to choose.  Fundamentalism and extremism, one must be warned, are mere church tyrants who live to distract us from freely experiencing the mystery of God by faith in the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.