Fear and Faith

When I search my heart and find my faith lacking lately, it is less about doubt than it is about fear. My lacking faith is really my increasing fear. I fear a great many things, and I wonder how or if certain things will happen. I am afraid of certain outcomes happening and other outcomes not happening. I am confident in who God is. I am confident in what He is able to do. My lacking faith is not so much about any doubts I have. It is about the fears and worries my mind and heart feel at particular points in life.

Lately I have been wondering whether faith has more to do with lacking fear than it does with lacking doubt.

Without a pail

The woman at the well in John 4 tells Jesus, "Sir, you have nothing to draw [water] with, and the well is deep."

While we realize she does not understand the water Jesus is referring to, there is a strong reflection for me to find myself in reading this story.

She does not know the power and ability Jesus has. She does not look at the circumstance at hand and think anyone could even possibly make this request happen. Jesus makes a request of her, and she is simply showing him the request is literally impossible. She does not yet understand or trust that what Jesus asks of her is actually possible or He would not have asked her to do it. She does not trust that what Jesus asks of her is possible, because of Jesus, to actually be done.

I sit here looking over my life at this time and of the things Jesus has called me to do and pursue in life. I look at my circumstances in life and will almost always wonder how in the world he could expect me to draw from such a deep well without a pail. Life is not exactly conducive to what you are saying, Jesus. Those things are literally impossible.

It is easy enough to think, "I only doubt myself, but not Jesus." But if I am honest, I do not doubt myself. I know what I am capable and incapable of. Suddenly I am stricken with the reality that I do not trust Jesus.

Bask: a prayer

Abba, May your spirit connect directly with mine!  May my spirit truly worship yours!  Today I am striving to bask in your love.  Not to think about your love and try to feel your love, but to sit and bask in your love.  I sit here right now drinking in your love.  Your love that calls me your child and sees me as blameless.  A love that relates to me in my spirit and not my flesh.  I praise you and deeply thank you for loving me in my spirit instead of my flesh.

I swim in the love of my heavenly Father who has loved me despite my flesh and the mistakes and struggles it trips on.  You love me because you see through my flesh, my feelings and my facade into my spirit which truly does remain blameless due to the outrageous price you paid for me so long ago.

Today, Abba, I rest in your love that I could NEVER receive from anyone else.  I am skinny-dipping in the waters of your love that lavishes me in acceptance, mercy, grace and spiritual pleasure.  I am truly drinking in a love I could never return.  I long for you to be pleased, and I trip and stumble to make you happy and you still tell me not to compare and measure your love for me in terms of my love for you! I try not to compare my lazy, passive, conditional, emotional, and often theoretical love with your love.

I rest in your love today with the realization that no matter how amazing my wife or daughters' love for me is, it will fail in comparison to yours.  That no matter how much my mother loves me, it will tremble at yours.  That I CANNOT depend solely on Tonya, Bryleigh, Haddisen, mom, friends, books, or my writing to feel special, loved or valid, but to depend only on your love.

I am taking this moment to really trust in your love for me at my deepest core, to spend a moment claiming my identity as your beloved child, and TRUSTING that enough to believe...BECAUSE of that I am special, loved and valid.  I am your child and I am drinking that love in right now.  Thank you for loving me, Daddy.  I love you and desire you to be happy, and I trust that I truly am special, loved and valid BECAUSE of your love for me.

Barely scratching the surface on connecting with God in spirit

* This is a very humble wondering and searching, and not a perfect scholarly approach. Proceed!

Recently I have read a few amazing books on prayer that have challenged me.  It challenged my view of God.  God is a spiritual being, and he is not flesh like us.  We are flesh, but God created us flesh and souls with spirits.  I cannot be theological enough here to say I know how that all works out (the diagram above is created by Dallas Willard, and has served me greatly).

Sometimes, I try relating to God awaiting the right feeling and emotion, and it always fails.  I just know that I too often try relating to God while starting with my emotions, and I fail.  Then I try relating to God with my mind, and that humorously fails. Then I just try to learn more about the spirit, and that spirit is what was made perfect and blameless by God on the cross.  Now if that is the only part of me that is blameless, I have to learn how to come to grips with it.

I do not know how to describe that, but I do know it takes a lot of trust (faith); like more trust than anything in my life has ever required before.  As I strive to learn, I do know that when my spirit is engaged (another thing I don't have space to define here), I THEN feel closer to the heart of God.  That is because he is a spiritual being and that is the only way to be relational to him.  This is why I said that when I come to him in spirit, it often forms, changes, and engages my mind, my emotions and my flesh.

There is no way I have clarified anything for you. So what say you?

Restoration through wrestling

Jesus tells each of his disciples to forgive his brothers' sins against him and others. He tells them "Things that cause people to sin are bound to happen." After challenging his disciples to forgive and love when they want to accuse and hate, the disciples attempt a subject change from discomfort to comfort. "Increase our faith!" (verse 5) Jesus speaks to them where they went with the subject, but I believe He ties it in with their unwillingness to forgive and love when its hardest. He says, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed..." (verse 6) I believe Jesus was placing the ball back in their court. Jesus does not let them off easy. He challenges them to realize it is not Jesus who needs to give them more faith to love and forgive. They need to understand that it only takes a little to do so much. Even the smallest amount of faith is plenty to forgive if a person is willing and wants to forgive. There are risks of course! We are called to love in a fallen world. We will forgive and love at the risk and inevitability of seeing more pain. But we MUST love and forgive. We must be willing to give at least a little faith. It goes a long way.

Now remember, these thoughts came through a struggle. (Tying it all together) This came after expressed HONEST struggle with God. I believe God honors our struggle and despises our tepid, lukewarm droning. We are not preschoolers who walk straight lines because we are attached to a rope. God honors the honest struggler. There are too many Christians trying to find life through soothing their soul, but I believe true passion is brought forth in honest struggle. I think our wrestling match with God is pregnant with passion and confidence. The good news is hatred of God and others decreases as Christ takes the heart inch by inch, but it comes only through honest and passionate struggle with God. We may be a new creation, but we are not a perfect creation.

The war over hatred and sin may be won ultimately, but the battle to replace hatred with love will be over only when we see Jesus in flesh. We can and will be angry with God, but have to be honest without reserve. We must understand the Holy Spirit will not allow a bottomless cup of anger to exist, and most often the heart will be engulfed in love when we are honest with God.

Abusing grace

The question of just about any presentation of grace is the same Paul rhetorically poses, “So then should I just sin so that grace may increase? Of course not.” So what is the answer to anyone who DOES sin so that their grace may increase? What about those who will say, “I have a reason and excuse to sin. I can sin because PC said God doesn’t care what I’ve done. God will love me.” That picture is again the outstanding picture of grace that is my marriage.

I vowed to love Tonya and cherish her as a gift of God. I would be naïve to say I will always do these things without tripping up. There WILL be times I will not honor Tonya perfectly. There will be times I will not cherish her and hold her in the regard she should be held. There will be times she does not receive love from me as she needs and desires.

Now will she give up on me and divorce me? No! She will go on loving me even though I have hurt her. But that is not the deepest cut. The deepest cut comes from the fact that I will have broken an eternal covenant we set in place through spoken vows. Each time I do not love, honor and cherish her, I break a covenant. She still loves me anyway. I DON’T DESERVE THAT!!!

Now imagine you are good friends with Tonya or some other wife, and she comes continuously to you about her husband. Suppose she tells you how many times he has emotionally wrecked her with absolutely no regard. Suppose she tells you how many times he unabashedly destroys the promises he made to her. Suppose you knew these things. Are you inclined to say, “Well Tonya! That’s great! Now your grace may increase to him?”

I am compelled to realize how much grace Tonya really does show me. How much of an idiot I would be if I paid no mind of her grace and continually abused it! Sure she may always forgive me and love me, but in the end I'd only be abusive.

I see how much she forgives me and loves me despite my broken promises and I desire even more to love and serve her.

Such is God’s grace! Do I just abuse it or does his grace drive me to a realization of my disregard?

Broken Faith

"Behold the man who would not make God his refuge; but trusted in the abundance of his riches and was strong in his evil desire. But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God forever and ever. I will give You thanks forever, because You have done it, and I will wait on Your name, for it is good in the presence of Your godly ones." - Psalm 52:7-9

If your trust in God's goodness and faithfulness wanes when times are tough, you have to wonder if your faith was ever in God in the first place. Perhaps it was in the things you have now lost.

Faith in God is not determined by our circumstances. That is faith in our circumstances; not faith in God. {Tweet that} Our circumstances can change in an instant, but God never changes.

Verse 8 begins, "But as for me..."

How would your life complete that sentence?