What is Faith?

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little gallery of art (if you were able to see it…) I enjoyed posting it. I’ve lost a great many pieces of art through the years. Who knows where it is? But I’m not exactly Picasso so I don’t think it really matters. Nevertheless, I find it can be very therapeutic at times.

 

Now, on to faith… if I have time, I may not… I have to pick up my son soon so we’ll see how it works out. 

 

I had a note (and I LOVE these kind of notes – the ones that make me THINK) that asked, “What IS faith?”  Of course that got me to thinking… what exactly do I think faith is? 

 

The Bible defines it in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  I’ve always kind of liked that definition.  It gives me a plum line to aim for when I’m trying to target my faith.  That doesn’t mean that I pray for something like a family vacation or a financial windfall and make myself count on it, because, in actuality, I don’t really FEEL sure of that.  What it DOES mean (to me) is that I feel SURE that God IS and certain of the Holy Spirit’s movement in our lives.  I HOPE that God IS.  No one could have MORE hope than me about that.  After all, I’ve been basing my whole life on that.  If HE wasn’t, then why would I even do things the way I do?

 

I mean if God wasn’t, I should be out there pursuing as many pleasurable moments out of THIS life as possible, right?  Why worry about distinguishing right from wrong… if there were no God, why would we even care?  The only REAL right would be the pursuit of as many moments of happiness as we could possible attain during our living hours because that would be IT for us.

 

But I SO believe that God IS that I easily choose to give up the blind pursuit of pleasure every minute of my life and I do this easily because I believe He has implanted in us an instinct and a sense of right and wrong… a sense of fairness.

 

I also have faith that God is not a tyrannical leader but, instead, more like an unimaginable Creator/Father.  His relationship to us is something I don’t believe we can even imagine because we have no basis of real comparison.  It is MORE than like a relationship with a Father because He did create us to worship Him, a concept that would seem foreign and maybe even distasteful to many fathers these days.  On the other hand, I believe His love for us exceeds that of any Father since He was willing to actually live for us… then die for us…

 

Here’s something that I wrote after a Bible Study a few weeks ago (I believe God gave it to me in response to all this Daddy/Daughter soul searching I’ve been going through – I may have posted this before, but I’m getting old and forget stuff LOL so please forgive me if I’m duplicating myself…. ;-)):

 

 

No other father has loved their child as painfully as I have loved you.

 

It was not just my death, it was also my life.  No father was ever born into this world just for the sake of their child.  And no father ever lived a totally sinless life, resisting ALL temptation, having no sin whatsoever JUST for the sake of their child.  And, having done that, no other father ever went to the cross and died in agony, suffering the punishment meant for their child. No father’s whole life was lived for, then lost for, His children alone except for mine.

 

And you think it was done because there were so many of you, as if I did it as a collective thing.  You think that maybe if there were fewer it wouldn’t have been as worthwhile?  Well, I can tell you this as a certainty.  I would have done the whole thing, from birth to death, even if it were for you, alone. THAT is how much I love you.

 

Anyway, I have faith, then, that in spite of how things SEEM, what God is doing to me/ for me/ with me is ultimately for HIS best and MY best, I just have to hang in there and see it out, maybe unto death, but it’ll be for the best in the end. 

 

I’m not trying to say that’s easy because it certainly is NOT and sometimes I get hurt and bewildered and look up at Him with pain and even agony, misery… and, yes, I have been known to cut and be self-destructive in response to some of the things life doles out but, in the end, I still believe in my heart that God has got it under control and if I freak out, it speaks to my lack of faith and not to His lack of being there.  And, guess what?  The reason I can say that is because I’m still here, aren’t I?  I have a home, I have clothes, I have children, I have food, I have two jobs that I love.  If God lets people down, you sure can’t prove it by ME. 

 

I know when I look around me, it SEEMS like He lets SOME people down so I can’t speak for others.  I talk to Him about that.  I pray, I confront Him, I beg Him for others… I appears to me that He DOES let others down but I don’t know the whole story.  I only know that, so far, He has NOT let ME down.

 

So faith, to me, is believing that my hope that I AM really IS and being certain that HIS intervention in our lives is real as illustrated by some of the stories I’ve given and many more incidents I could list that seem waaaaay beyond c

oincidence.

 

Ooopss… my son just called… I’ve gotta go pick him up!