Anyone reading the Bible for the first time or the thousandth time,
can easily be overcome by seemingly impossible examples of faith that
the narrators string together - Abraham, Moses, Paul, Elijah, and
countless other characters who displayed levels of faith that just make
me feel really small.
For Abraham, he listened to a voice that sounded much like what we would call "gut feeling" today - and it told him to leave everything and journey to a land he'd never heard of.
For Moses, he saw and heard a similar voice through the burning bush - and it told him that he would need to go back into the country in which he was wanted for murder - but with a different agenda: to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian oppression.
For Sarah, it was a voice that told her at her old age (90 years) she would bear a child. And, she laughed because the thought was ridiculous.
When we talk about faith, there are two kinds of faith. The one kind is the cause and effect kind of faith. The cause - being X, leads to the effect, being Y.
In this kind of faith, the the journey is known. The objective of this kind of faith is to calm the storm of needless worry. After all, if the cell phone breaks, the store is right down the road. And so, the point of this kind of faith is to trust God from point A to point B. As a result, we do the next right thing, and try to trust that God is going to get us to the next destination in the material realm.
There's another kind of faith too. It's direction is less clear, more muddled, and way more risky.
In this type of faith, there is an X, but no Y. The Y is invisible. The destination is unknown. The process is not common sense. The road is untraveled.
There are no material landmarks that we can see, because they are invisible.
It's as if the faith was initiated by a still, small voice that said, "Go here, but there are no details for you to grasp, nothing for you to see, nothing to hear, nothing to engage your senses."
I've gotten really good at having the former kind of faith, the kind that reduces worry when I know where point A and point B are. This is the everyday kind of faith that's required to face the problems that life throws at me. This faith eradicates the worries that can so easily entangle us while living life on life's terms.
But, what about the deeper kind of faith. What about those instances in which we heard the still, small voice that sounded much like our conscious, but as soon as we heard it we turned it off and convinced ourselves, "That's absurd! That's just my mind trying to trip me up. Everybody would think I was crazy for doing that!"
Evidence of this kind of faith is more common to us that we probably think. A good example of it can be found by taking a deep look at what we love to do. Our favorite passions are usually the thing we're most afraid of pouring our lives into. Why?
Because the process seems impossible. The chances of us really making it seem slim.
The still, small voice has been reminding us for years and years that we were made to make movies, but we can't see the destination. The landmarks haven't been put out for us. And so, we stay at the same job, dream the same dreams, and talk the same talk, because doing that seems real, and we can at least have our senses engaged.
I believe the kind of faith we all yearn for is the kind that doesn't have visible road markers.
We all know people who've "chased their dreams." Why do we call it that? Because what they were chasing was invisible. And everybody who watched them thought they were insane for doing it, until they did it, and then everybody admired them for their courage.
What about the missionary who leaves everything to go into the jungles of South America, not knowing the language or the culture? What about the cyclist who quits his six-digit salary job to start a bike shop, not knowing how he's going to do it? What about the songwriter who decides that she's going to work eight to five writing songs, not knowing how she's gonna make rent?
I've been relying on the kind of faith that engages my senses for a long time. And it's not bad, it's just elementary. It's part of growing.
But eventually, if I want to have my spiritual life enlarged, I'm going to have to learn to have faith when there aren't any signs pointing me in the "right" direction.
It's gonna look like Abraham, who took a step into the desert fully confident that the invisible God was leading him, not the visible roadmaps that he was so used to.
I believe this kind of faith is not removed from the deepest desires of our hearts - our greatest passions. Whatever it is, it's been calling us for years to step out into the unknown and to rely on this still, small voice that keeps reminding us of what we were created to do.
Today's Action: What is that deep down desire in our hearts, that thing that seems impossibly difficult, that passion that we've been too afraid to give too much thought? Are we willing to embrace the kind of faith that steps into the unknown, the kind of faith that takes action and doesn't know where it's going? Make a list of possible steps "into the unknown", steps that tap into what that still, small voice has been telling us for years. Maybe we'll start seeing the phrase faith is proof of things unseen come to fruition.
For Abraham, he listened to a voice that sounded much like what we would call "gut feeling" today - and it told him to leave everything and journey to a land he'd never heard of.
For Moses, he saw and heard a similar voice through the burning bush - and it told him that he would need to go back into the country in which he was wanted for murder - but with a different agenda: to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian oppression.
For Sarah, it was a voice that told her at her old age (90 years) she would bear a child. And, she laughed because the thought was ridiculous.
When we talk about faith, there are two kinds of faith. The one kind is the cause and effect kind of faith. The cause - being X, leads to the effect, being Y.
In this kind of faith, the the journey is known. The objective of this kind of faith is to calm the storm of needless worry. After all, if the cell phone breaks, the store is right down the road. And so, the point of this kind of faith is to trust God from point A to point B. As a result, we do the next right thing, and try to trust that God is going to get us to the next destination in the material realm.
There's another kind of faith too. It's direction is less clear, more muddled, and way more risky.
In this type of faith, there is an X, but no Y. The Y is invisible. The destination is unknown. The process is not common sense. The road is untraveled.
There are no material landmarks that we can see, because they are invisible.
It's as if the faith was initiated by a still, small voice that said, "Go here, but there are no details for you to grasp, nothing for you to see, nothing to hear, nothing to engage your senses."
I've gotten really good at having the former kind of faith, the kind that reduces worry when I know where point A and point B are. This is the everyday kind of faith that's required to face the problems that life throws at me. This faith eradicates the worries that can so easily entangle us while living life on life's terms.
But, what about the deeper kind of faith. What about those instances in which we heard the still, small voice that sounded much like our conscious, but as soon as we heard it we turned it off and convinced ourselves, "That's absurd! That's just my mind trying to trip me up. Everybody would think I was crazy for doing that!"
Evidence of this kind of faith is more common to us that we probably think. A good example of it can be found by taking a deep look at what we love to do. Our favorite passions are usually the thing we're most afraid of pouring our lives into. Why?
Because the process seems impossible. The chances of us really making it seem slim.
The still, small voice has been reminding us for years and years that we were made to make movies, but we can't see the destination. The landmarks haven't been put out for us. And so, we stay at the same job, dream the same dreams, and talk the same talk, because doing that seems real, and we can at least have our senses engaged.
I believe the kind of faith we all yearn for is the kind that doesn't have visible road markers.
We all know people who've "chased their dreams." Why do we call it that? Because what they were chasing was invisible. And everybody who watched them thought they were insane for doing it, until they did it, and then everybody admired them for their courage.
What about the missionary who leaves everything to go into the jungles of South America, not knowing the language or the culture? What about the cyclist who quits his six-digit salary job to start a bike shop, not knowing how he's going to do it? What about the songwriter who decides that she's going to work eight to five writing songs, not knowing how she's gonna make rent?
I've been relying on the kind of faith that engages my senses for a long time. And it's not bad, it's just elementary. It's part of growing.
But eventually, if I want to have my spiritual life enlarged, I'm going to have to learn to have faith when there aren't any signs pointing me in the "right" direction.
It's gonna look like Abraham, who took a step into the desert fully confident that the invisible God was leading him, not the visible roadmaps that he was so used to.
I believe this kind of faith is not removed from the deepest desires of our hearts - our greatest passions. Whatever it is, it's been calling us for years to step out into the unknown and to rely on this still, small voice that keeps reminding us of what we were created to do.
Today's Action: What is that deep down desire in our hearts, that thing that seems impossibly difficult, that passion that we've been too afraid to give too much thought? Are we willing to embrace the kind of faith that steps into the unknown, the kind of faith that takes action and doesn't know where it's going? Make a list of possible steps "into the unknown", steps that tap into what that still, small voice has been telling us for years. Maybe we'll start seeing the phrase faith is proof of things unseen come to fruition.
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