Tag: faith

A Rainbow

I was driving home from taking my oldest daughter to work. It had been a dreary rainy day the previous day and at that hour there were still some sprinkles. After leaving her at work I made my way home. The sun was starting to peak over the horizon. Before me, in the middle of the gray clouds was a faint, but large rainbow.

I began musing about the promise God made to Noah and how we still see evidence of this today. It struck me as odd that God did this. He could have sent an angel or some other method to share this promise with Noah. But he didn’t. He made it permanent a part of our natural world. And yet a rainbow while being real in a scientific sense is also extremely ephemeral and mysterious. If you try to track the rainbow you will never catch it. It disappears before your eyes.

The rainbow comes on the heels of the a storm. Without the storm there is no rainbow. He doesn’t promise us there will be smooth sailing. He never said a trouble free life is a sign of his hand in our lives. No. He promises us hope in the storm. He reminds us of his presence and greatness even while the rain falls.

He gives us hope to face what we need to face. His rainbow is a reminder of him and his great love for man.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Explaining my thoughts

I had a discussion with a friend about the works vs faith debate. How do we settle the differences in opinions that seem apparent between James and Paul. There are people, far smarter than me that can be called on to give the fine debate points. It can be a complicated argument. Bogged down by historical doctrines and even personal opinions about which is more important. Works based religions are very attractive, as we can see by the abundance of them.

My issue with this has always been that if we focus on works alone we are making it about us, not Jesus. This is not what James was suggesting, and it is what Paul is speaking about directly in his letter to the Ephesians.

I was thinking how can I represent this visually. So I tried laying it out in a diagram. I came up with this.

I wanted to make sure Jesus was at the centre. But then I realized this actually shows my problem with the basic debate. Whether we gain our salvation by works or faith is not the point. Both are products of our own efforts. They are both about us.

It needs to be about Jesus and His gift of grace. Without Jesus we have no redemption of sin. Without Jesus we have no salvation. So the diagram should look like this.

Paul says it best and it seems quite simple to me. Faith is what we bring to the party, along with our efforts and works to show the love of God to the worlds. But EVERYTHING else God and Jesus provided.

Ephesians 2: 8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

Renewal is hard

I am sitting here listening to an instrumental version of the beautiful song “Breath of Heaven.” It is lovely to hear but it got thinking… this is sometimes how I see renewal. I ask God to renew my spirit and I sit and wait for the Holy spirit to pour over me and renew me. Maybe this happens to some people. Not me.

As anyone who has lived through a renovation can tell you it is a messy business. Everything is dusty, ripped apart and nothing works. On top of that the rebuild can seem to be endless. When you are living without a sink the wait for cabinets, carpenters, counters, plumbers, tile setters etc., can seem endless. And the outcome only seems to be increased visits to the chiropractor, to deal with the strain caused by doing dishes in the bathtub.

It is hard. Waiting and wading through mess. This is what renewal is like. The hard work of dealing with our old toxic habits or beliefs while allowing God to slowly rebuild our inner framework.

Maybe the breath of God blew over you and in a moment you gave your life to him, but you still have a lot of work to do, albeit now with the help of God.

If we ask God to renew us we need to be prepared for some difficulties. But it is worth it. Any suffering, hardship, rethinking or change of life if worth it if it brings us closer to God.

James 4: 7 – 10 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Generational faith

I have a friend who runs a lovely Facebook group. It is a space for women to discuss everything related to money and finance. It is a supportive group and she does an amazing job of moderating it. When I read comments I come across the phrase – generational wealth.

People want to build something for their children. They invest wisely and budget so they can help their kids. Whether it is through education investments, properties, or a plan to leave wealth to their children. I have no fault with this. Money drives our society and thinking of your own family is a caring and wonderful gesture.

I would just like to expand it a bit. I’d like to see families add the concept of generational faith. We wouldn’t just ask how can I best provide financially for my family, but also how best can I build faith for my family.

In the same way that there isn’t just one path to building financial success, there isn’t one way to building strong faith either.

The issue isn’t a ‘how to,’ but one of focus. If you are interested in building wealth it needs to be front and centre as you make decisions in your life. The same thing goes for faith. It needs to be a central pillar of our daily plans. It needs to be the lens through which we see the world.

So today I exhort you to contemplate generational faith.

Deuteronomy 6: 4 – 9 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

How to do it

I am a practical person. Whenever I seek advice or help, I always ask, ‘What does that look like?’ or ‘How exactly do I do that?’

In life I have been asked, on more than one occasion, to step out in faith and trust that God will look after my future. Sometimes the path forward has been clearer than others.

Recently we have been in a situation where we took a big step off the cliff and believed that God will answer our prayers. At this point it looks like He has a different answer in mind. It can make me feel like he isn’t willing to catch us this time. That he isn’t answering our prayers.

Regardless of my feelings about it I know he is sovereign. How do I maintain my faith and belief in God’s goodness when things seem to be going off the rails. I don’t mean what encouragement do I gather, or how do I intellectually process it, but rather how do I do it?

It came to me late last night. God gave us an example of what to do. He provided a model.

Matthew 26: 36-39 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 

Thinking about Jesus

There are three topics of discussion I have bumped into over the last few weeks.
First, concerns about freedom; what it means, what it looks like. Second, the idea of truth. Is truth just subjective or is it something more? Third, who can we believe, who and what can we trust?

These are all huge discussions encompassing many of the contrasting views rampant in our society. My thoughts led me to develop a little Venn diagram.

Faith and reason

I was listening to a chapter of CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity about Faith (Chapter 11). An interesting chapter full of reflections on human behaviour, sin and how God interacts with us. A short listen. If you are like me, listening is easier than taking the time to sit and hold a book and read. Many of CS Lewis’ writings are on YouTube – so you don’t even need to download an audio book. He is among the authors I enjoy most.

In this chapter Lewis asserts that the tension in believing Christianity is between faith and reason on one side and our imaginations and emotions on the other. This was striking to me.

We live in an age where faith and reason are presented as polar opposites. Religion = faith. Science = reason. Faith is for those who can’t think ideas through and choose to believe. Science is for those that like proof and won’t believe fairy tales.

The past is full of great thinkers who leaned heavily on their faith and their reason. Scientist, artist, theologians all wrote inspired by both.

Hearing this made me realize how far our society has fallen down the slope of anti-Christian rhetoric. The dialogue is no longer, ‘your reason leads you to one conclusion about God and mine leads me to different conclusion.’ Instead, ‘if your reason leads you to believe in God then you are not thinking it through you are not rational, you are motivated by faith.’

This attitude puts the Christian on the back foot, having to not only prove their position but their process as well

I don’t have any answers to this. The best we can do is stay the course and hope that the dialogue improves with time.