FAITH

This is something God has really been working on in my life.  I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me to put my thought into words at times, so please bear with me.

Mark 4:36-41 ESV 

 36And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.  And other boats were with him.  37And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.  38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.  And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  39And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace!  Be still!”  And the wind ceased, and   there was a great calm.  40He said to them, "Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  41And they were filled with great fear and said to one another,   "Who then is this, that even   the wind and the sea obey him?"

When Jesus calmed the storm and asked His disciples “Have you still no faith?” it spoke volumes to me.  I mean here we have the disciples who have every humanistic right to be scared and Jesus turns to them and says, “Have you still no faith?”  Or when He curses the fig tree and the disciples are shocked that it died and He turns to them and says “You of little faith.”  Almost as if He’s saying, “This should be normal to you!”  We have really domesticated our faith.  For those of us who grew up in church, we were taught to stay inside the denominational “box”, and just blend in with everyone around us.  And the new Christians, who are on fire for God, are immediately thrown into classes of how to fit in.  They are told what is and isn’t acceptable.  Then they are told to “tone it down” because they’re too extreme.

But what I want to know is how can we read the bible and NOT see the extremes?  I mean Jesus was walking on water and calls Peter out to Him.  When Peter saw the waves and started to sink, Jesus pulls him up and says “you of little faith!  Why did you doubt?”  Peter had every humanistic right to fear and doubt, but again it’s like Jesus was saying to him “What’s wrong with you?  This should be normal to you!”  We seem to have forgotten or just don’t realize that God doesn’t work according to our logic.  He will always defy our logic.  When Joshua went to war with Jericho, God told him to walk in circles around the city for seven days!  When the logical thing of the time was to get siege weapons, encamp around the city, poison the water supply and just wait for the enemy to surrender.  Not walk in circles!  Or when Peter told Jesus that they needed to pay the temple tax, Jesus didn’t give him the money, he told him to go fish.  Peter could have easily doubted and said, “Jesus, I have been a fisherman all my life and never once have I caught a fish with money in its mouth.”  But he had faith and the tax was paid.

With all this being said, I still struggle with my own faith in our current situation.  I mean; here I am 28 years old with 2 kids and a pregnant wife, and I’m about to quit a good paying job with great benefits to go to Kansas City without knowing where we’re going to live or were money is going to come from.  Even though God has confirmed and reconfirmed that this is what He wants me to do I still fear and doubt.  I have often thought, “This is crazy!  It doesn’t make sense!  I’m just going to back out!” but every time I begin to think like this God does something to get me back on track.  For example; not too long ago I was going through a moment of freaking out and I get on facebook to just distract myself and I come across Rick Pinos’ page and his post was Hebrews 10:38-39 “ 38 And, But my righteous one will live by faith.  And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.  39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”  Talk about a smack in the face!  God knew what I needed for that moment.

Now I’m not writing this to brag about anything because I don’t have it figured out like I just said, but to encourage you.  The word of God is full of promises of how God will take care of us as long as we remember the condition He places, “…seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well” ~ Matt. 6:33.  Like I said I still struggle with this, cause here I am up at 3:30 a.m. because of this praying for greater faith.  I still fear that I might be leading my family to destruction because I have every humanistic right to fear and God is screaming at me “HAVE YOU STILL NO FAITH?”

God has really used this book I’m reading called – The Barbarian Way- to show me what He expects from us through a life of faith.  In one chapter, it says, "The civilized build shelters and invite God to stay with them; barbarians move with God wherever He chooses to go.  The civilized Christian has a routine; the barbarian disciple has a mission.  The civilized believer knows the letter of the law; the barbarian disciple lives the spirit of the law.  The religiously civilized live tradition; the barbarian spirit loves challenges.  The civilized are satisfied with ritual; barbarians live and thrive in the mystical.  For the civilized disciple, religion provides stability and certainty; for the barbarian, a life in God is one of risk and mystery.”  So to truly follow God is a life of risk.  It’s not for the “civilized”.  I mean if you read the last chapter of John Jesus told Peter that if he would choose to live this life that he was going to die in a way that he wouldn’t want to.  So what makes us think that a God who chose the cross to save us and then says to follow Him would want nothing more for us than to live a mundane life in safety?  Another quote from-The Barbarian Way- is ‎"Anyone who chooses the barbarian way will learn quickly that love and sacrifice cannot be separated.  This is perhaps why so many of us who know love fear love.  We know that love is not the absence of pain.  If anything, love is the promise of pain.  No one has loved more deeply than God, Has anyone ever been more betrayed?  God would not know suffering if He did not know love.  But because He is Love, He chose to suffer on our behalf.  Without love there is no glory in suffering.  The suffering of Christ glorifies God because it elevates love.  Compelled by love, God would go where He knew suffering was certain.  Love always moves to sacrifice, which is exactly where He calls us to go.  We shouldn't be surprised, then..., that to follow Christ is to abandon the luxury of safety and security.  If we are to be like Him, we must always risk for love.  We are invited to follow Him with reckless abandon.  The call of God is more than a leap of faith; it is a life of faith.  Even when it seems beyond our abilities, we should not be surprised when God tells us to jump."  So I have to always pray for more of His love in my life.  Because without it I can’t trust-“ ...Love always trust…” 1 Cor. 13:7

So I encourage you whatever the situation is in your life, SEEK HIM OUT!  And I’ll Keep you in prayer as you keep me in prayer.

God, help me to decrease so you may increase.  Help me to be so submersed in your heart that I would no longer exist.  Amen 

written in November 2010