Skip to main content

FAITH


            They don’t call it faith for nothing.  My proof readers will want to change that sentence…but it is the best way to say what I need to say.  I’m not God, but even I’m a little fed up with the weak-willed faith I hear coming from the hearts of Christians.  Faith does not mean that you pray, and you get your own way!  Faith is not about getting the things you want out of life!  Where’s the faith in that?

            Rather faith is trusting that what you can see isn’t all that is going on in any particular situation.  Faith is about believing what you can’t see. Hebrews 11:1 defines it:  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  It involves believing that when the opposite of what you prayed for happens that there is something hopeful going on in heaven that you cannot see.  When the baby you have been praying for dies of cancer rather than responds to treatment, faith says there is more to the story.  A Christian who has faith will not lose hope. 

            Hebrews 11:6 goes so far to say: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.  When your prayers don’t yield the results you were counting on happening on earth, faith believes the reward is ahead in heaven.  Faith does not look to what can be seen to determine God’s purposes.  Faith knows that what is not seen is real and will take place and bring hope!

            Faith doesn’t whine and complain that God is not fair or go off thinking God is not good just because our own finite human wishes aren’t granted.  Faith knows that God is bigger than our prayers.  God is wiser than our reasoning, and God is always good.  He always has our best interests at heart.  What looks like the worst is not the worst!

            There is something far worse—that would be not having faith.  Jean-Pierre de Caussade said: Faith will transform our perception.  In this life, faith is our light.  With it we can know what we can’t see, we can touch what we can’t feel, we can strip the world of everything superficial. Faith is the combination to God’s vault (Abandonment to Divine Providence).

            So…the people I have in mind whose faith I am judging in an incredulous manner in this devotion are just like me.  They have faith.  They have enough faith to think that God is behind the fact that they can’t get their own way.  They are not living in a faithless vacuum after all.  Perhaps I need to look in the mirror and see my own lack of faith and my own struggle with God as I demand my own way!

            Thank God for faith.  Thank God that the seed of faith keeps me spiritually alive. 

            Will you join with me and have a little more faith, especially when your prayers seem to be going south?  Will you have faith that God is good and that He loves you and has reasons you may not be able to understand now?

            Together, let’s have a little faith and see how our faith might grow.

Copyright 2013. Deborah R. Newman www.teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving Forward

It’s been half a decade since my husband of 27.5 years died suddenly of a brain bleed.  My life turned upside down that weekend, and nothing will ever be the same.  Someone commented to me that I had moved-on.  It was meant to be a compliment, and I totally get the affirmation that was intended.  The truth is I have not moved-on, nor do I ever expect that I will.  I love this quote sent to me in a sympathy card and have shared it over and over with others.  St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: I can never lose one whom I have loved unto the end; one to whom my soul cleaves so firmly that it can never be separated does not go away but only goes before.               Grief should have a beginning, middle and end; that is true.  That first year or two I would have done anything to diminish my pain.  I was in so much pain that I wasn’t even a person.  It’s hard to believe that we humans will naturally grow more comfortable existing in our pit of despair of grief than to let it go…
Post a Comment
Read more

Thank You Dad

Recently I have been contemplating why it is ingrained in me that I must be quiet and respectful and look at the flag when the national anthem is played.  It’s as natural for me as standing for the Hallelujah Chorus during Handel’s Messiah or for the Bride when she walks through the back door.  Like a Pavlov dog, my instincts go into action, and I do not even think about my somewhat conditioned response. Why?  It was definitely my own father who had the most influence over me regarding the national anthem.  I am not a sports enthusiast.  However, from a young age I found myself at sports games because my older brother played every sport offered.  Our family faithfully attended those games, which normally started with the national anthem.  I found a way to enjoy the otherwise agonizing experience of being held prisoner to my brother’s sporting events by gravitating to my friends who were there under duress as well.  We made up games of our own; we would laugh and talk throughout the q…
Post a Comment
Read more

Traveling Through

I am writing this week’s Tea Time devotion from the airport in Houston, Texas.  When I set out my travel plans months earlier, I never expected to use the Houston International airport at all.  I’ve been here two times in the last three days, and the last time it was for about six hours due to weather at my destination!  In fact, for the last four days I have been traveling back and forth from two different Central American countries, and only one of my four days of flying proceeded as planned.  I’ve had a lot of time to ponder airline practices; and I can come up with a multitude of suggestions for what they could do better, but that is not my job.  The long, strenuous, and unexpected travel has driven home the instructions Peter gives to Christians in his two letters:But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: Be holy, because I am holy. (1 Peter 1:15-16) So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every ef…
Post a Comment
Read more