It's A Question Of Faith

Sometimes faith seems so easy, like when you are in church listening to a particularly inspiring sermon, or those times when you feel the Spirit of God speaking to you. For me though, I am continually plagued by the workings of my mind, by the world's wisdom. My mind will question the interpretation of something in the Bible or I'll read something in a FICTIONAL story of all things that brings up nagging questions for me and my faith wavers. My faith in the existence of God or Jesus? No. My faith that Jesus worked miracles or died and rose from the dead? No. But little things that get me to thinking "maybe that part's true, but that part may not be true", especially things in the Bible in relation to modern day life. And from where, for me, do all these doubts stem? From what I have spoken of before, FEAR. Mostly fear of being wrong, of being stupid, of being naive, of being bamboozled. This I think is one of my biggest faith challenges; I don't like to be wrong, I don't like to look stupid, and I like everything to make sense.

But maybe it's deeper than that. Today in church the talk was about healthy marriages and how we live in a disposable society where we throw away anything that doesn't give us exactly what we want when we want it. Many aren't willing to work hard anymore for anything. We want things to come easy for us. To put it simply, many of us have a hard time fully committing, and especially if committing means compromising or surrendering in some way, because this seems to mean we are weak. I can convince myself that I'm actually quite good at commitment; after all, even though I'm on my second marriage, I was with my first wife for about 15 years (9 of it married) and have been with my second wife for about 12 years, and have worked at my job for almost 8 years and 10 years at the job before that. I'm committed to being a good follower of Christ and a good husband and a good father. But what does that mean? Well, it means not only do I have to be good at sticking and staying, but I also have to be willing to surrender and sacrifice. Jesus showed us how to do it when he totally surrendered to God's plan even though he knew how big a sacrifice he would have to make.

The identification with the mind, the ego, the self is what I have to be willing to surrender. Like Jesus, I have to be willing to let God pilot my life, TOTALLY, and when I do that I will inevitably be giving up selfishness for God's selflessness. Surrendering to God totally takes faith. But what if He wants me to do a bunch of stuff I don't like or I'm not good at? I have to have faith that God will put me exactly where I need to be and give me the tools to carry out His plan. But how will I pay all my bills if I tithe and give money to charitable causes? I have to have faith that God will do as promised and will take care of me when I step out in faith in His name. How will He do that? I have no idea. Will I end up doing stuff that doesn't make sense to me if I step out in faith? Yes, most probably. 1 Corinthians 1:19 says "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate". And further in 1 Corinthians 2:5 I am reminded that my faith must "......not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power". I hear and read many of man's "truths" everyday and my worldly mind/ego likes to latch onto them and chew on them and tries to question God's word. I have to have faith though and listen not to man's truths, but to the spiritual truths whispered in that still small voice by the Holy Spirit sent to me by my heavenly Father to guide me on my path. Sometimes I have to listen very hard. Oh, but when I do..... when I really listen with my heart and not my puny little mind, it is so worth it my friends.

So, I pray to my Lord in faith to challenge me to step out of my comfort zone each day, to open myself to selfless possibilities to be there for someone else just when they needed someone to be there as my God is there for me when I need Him. I pray the Lord will help me be a better listener to spiritual truths and to carry them out in action in my life. For faith without action is no faith at all.