Reality Faith

Recently, someone very dear to me (who, by the way, may be reading this) asked me for a way to help a friend to understand faith. My email response was this, “Defining faith to anyone is like explaining love to a junior high kid. It’s elusive. It’s not a feeling but it does have feelings. It’s not a bolt of lightening, but it can produce a ‘moment’ when the moment is needed. Faith is allowing yourself the privilege of seeing the unseen, reaching for the unreachable and letting your heart hold a possibility in the face of multiple disappointments.” I must say I was pleased with what jumped out of my heart and onto the keyboard. It was without premeditation and dripping with my own passions.

After I read what I had written, it hit me: I needed that definition for myself. If I’m not diligent, I can allow myself the subtle error of thinking that I am a “professional person of faith”. No such thing exists in this very real world. Faith must never become canned, packaged and reduced to formulas. In fact, at that level, it ceases to be faith. We pastors have an occupational hazard of sermonizing life instead of passionately living a life that, in itself, is a message.

Jesus responded to a variety of expressions of faith. In one case a broken hearted woman wept at His feet and washed His feet with her tears. He called that action, “faith” and His response to her tells me that faith is more “felt than tell’t”. He was not looking for a precise, antiseptic, robotic regurgitation of a memorized lesson. He was looking for the heart. In fact, one the most quoted scriptures used to "get people saved" is Romans 10:9,10. (Side-note; I'll write a blog someday about this much abused Christian cliche, "saved"...it seems to reduce the glorious beauty of salvation to a WWLtCGD? = What Would Larry the Cable Guy Do? Git 'em saved! The thought just gives me a sharp pain in my side...around the spleen region) Sorry for the digression. The Romans passage cries out for the full engagement of the heart to the power of the resurrection of Christ! "Believe in the heart that God raised Him...." Oh, that lights a fire in me just typing the words!

“Letting your heart hold a possibility in the face of multiple disappointments…”. Another way to say it is, “Faith is spelled, R-I-S-K”. It’s about putting your heart “out there” one more time. In recent days I've been putting my heart and my faith right out there on my sleeve. Quite frankly, there are moments when it's terrifying. So what, life isn't for the faint of heart. I dare you to join me.