On faith...

Often when we’re sorting through the musty cobwebs of life, we may have to make that difficult choice…To believe or not to believe?

We often forget that we are not the first to have faith. Even though Christ would have to wait His ENTIRE LIFE before He could see the full fruit of what He was believing in, he still KNEW that this time would come and was willing to wait. And not just to wait….but to actively wait.

It was a deep certainty of what Jesus was waiting for (and the JOY of it) that drove Him to spend hours of every day with His disciples…patiently teaching and relentlessly loving. Even when He knew they would not fully comprehend his words and actions until it all had been finished.

It was a deep certainty that drove Christ to heal the sick anyway…even when it enraged many people around Him. Every day for 30 some years…He chose to believe and He chose to love. And many times He escaped to pray and ask for what He waited for.

It was a deep certainty that drove Him to carry His own cross up a hill after almost everyone had abandoned Him and the people He was hoping to save were not only blind to the love He was showing, but they were actually demanding His death. He could have doubted. He could have given up. But instead, even though the impossibility of these people actually understanding and believing was everywhere around Him, He gave His entire life away to the point of death.

So Jesus Christ was certain. It seems that when we go through times of shaky circumstances contradicting what God has promised….When we have the choice to believe in the world around us, or in our God…This gives us a chance to participate in what Christ experienced when He was here. To know at least a little bit about what this was like for Him. And also to come to the place where we know that what we wait for (and more importantly, WHO we wait for) is true and we can be certain enough (and excited enough about the results!) that we are ok with waiting…and actively waiting. Actively loving anyway…Actively praying….Actively walking with Jesus, who has gone before us and promised to give us a hand if we find it hard.

And it just so happens that the same One who has all this experience living by faith is the one who promises to help us do the same...since all of this is certainly not easy. As hard as all this is...it sure is a good thing He's planning to give us a hand!
So...
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the JOY set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”