Tuesday, May 04, 2004

The other day our little group was having a discussion and in the midst of the discussion the question came up, "what is faith and how does it work?".  This reminded me of the little story I heard years ago, you probably heard it too. The Sunday School teacher asked the class what "faith" was.  All the children looked around and finally little Johnny raised his hand and said, "faith was believing something you knew wasn't true".  Which brings me to the point of this post.  How honest are we about what we believe? There are things that we feel we must agree to in order to be a Christian or to be accepted within the circle that we move in.  The list is endless......salvation, hell, the Trinity, what is and isn't sin, what about people who never hear about Jesus, the Bible, etc....... It is proported that to adhere to the standard position regarding any of the above mentioned subjects is an act of faith.  But I wonder if it might not be closer to little Johnny's definiton than we think?  What would happen if we really didn't know the answer about hell or salvaton or faith or sin or whatever and we said, "I don't know, but this is what I'm thinking at the moment."  What if we were able to be honest about our faith and our doubts and take our time to experience and figure it out?  What would that look like? Well, in our discusson Sunday the comment was made that it looks like life!  It takes an incredible amount of faith to get up out of bed and leave the house in the morning in light of the dangers all around us in the world we live in.  It takes a huge step of faith to put our kids on the school bus in the morning with any degree of confidence.  It also takes alot of faith to express ourselves in a group of people who could belittle us and undermine our self-esteem.  And although these "acts of faith" don't seem very spiritual they say alot about our view of God and His care for us and if we will ultimately be o.k. no matter what happens. It is my hunch that honest doubt is worth it's weight in gold for from it springs true faith that inhabits the soul.  It is also my hunch that dishonest faith; the kind that goes against all that our soul says is true; is just that...dishonest and leads us away from God and the truth. Honest doubt says, "I don't know" when we don't know and asks for light in order to see.  Dishonest faith says "I know" when it doesn't and therefore rejects the light when it enters the room.  Jesus said in John 5:39-40, "You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, for they testify of me.  Yet you refuse to come to me that I might give you life." It is hard to face our honest doubts for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is rejection from friends.  Yet if we admit to our blindness, we are able to receive the light the Christ brings.  And Lord knows we need it. 8:20:51 AM

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