Simple Faith
March 9, 2009 | books, daily ramblings, faith, ministry life
Carve away meetings. Denominational differences. Nice church clothes. Conferences. Books. The guy on TV who wants you to send in $100 for seed money. Two-a-day Sunday meetings.
What do you have?
Not easy faith. Not faith without questions. Not rich or poor faith. Not he or she’s better or worse faith.
But man reaching for God, and that meeting of the hearts transforming man.
I couldn’t sleep Saturday night. So I talked to God. It’s been a long time since I hung out with him in absolute silence.
I’m a simple kind of girl when it comes to faith. I believe. I trust. I turn. And yet I’m also a woman who digs deep to find answers, who doesn’t want to follow blindly, who wants intelligent faith, who desires to hear other perspectives, who has to shut out the noise and listen to God.
I see what happens when someone who has never known God experiences Him for the first time, and I’m still in awe of that.
I also see what happens when faith becomes anything but about relationship. It’s the last thing I want, and yet I see how it can happen.
I’ve waited nearly two years for the right project. I’m grateful for a patient publisher. But it’s time to write that next book, which is why I was talking to God about it in the middle of the night.
I think it will be titled Simple Faith. What it is. What it’s not. How we get sidetracked from it. What it means to have relationship, to suffer, to sacrifice, to abound in joy, to trust, to have peace that doesn’t make sense, to fail, to follow.
But before I write one word, it has to be a personal journey first. So that’s why I hung out in conversation with Him. And yes, there were a few complexities that needed ironed out. Yes, indeed.
But that’s also part of simple faith. Isn’t it? Receiving life, direction, wisdom and even rebuke so that we can keep it real.
32Jesus responded, “The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. 33The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world.”
35Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. 36I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don’t really believe me. 37Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go. 38I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.
34They jumped at that: “Master, give us this bread, now and forever!” (John 6)
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