Suffering strengthens faith

Science has discovered yet again something that Christians have known for a long time.  Suffering strengthens faith!  Check out the book of Acts and the growth of the church after the persecution began.  Thanks to World Mag

Dealing with doubt

Finally finished up Doubt by Os Guinness.  Guinness is not an easy read but well worth the investment of the time.   This is a book that I started reading one day at a library more than ten years ago.  When I got home, I found a second-hand copy since it was published in 1976.  However, I just noticed that it was also published with the title In Two Minds. Still available from second hand re-sellers.

For Guinness, doubt is not a bad thing.  In fact, he says, “But if ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt.  If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing.  But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger still.” 11  Doubt is not the same as unbelief; “Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief. . .”  19  That said, doubt needs to be resolved.  Says the author, “if faith does not resolve doubt, doubt will resolve faith.” 147

Guinness examines in detail, a chapter at a time, what he calls, five categories of doubt: Doubt from ingratitude, Doubt from a faulty view of God, Doubt from a weak foundation, Doubt from a lack of commitment, Doubt from lack of growth, Doubt from unruly emotions and Doubt from fearing to believe (due to scars from old wounds)  I appreciated his last two doubts; perhaps because these are where my doubts most often come.

In each chapter he presents some suggestions for resolving these doubts.  However in the third part of the book, he offers general principles to help those with doubts.  Listening is the foundation for all help we can give to those in doubt, followed by discerning, speaking and warning. The chapter on listening deserves a post of its own.

Finally, Guinness closes with two chapters that deal with Two Difficult Doubts.  One is the challenge to our faith when we do not understand what God is doing–when we are in darkness and must “suspend judgment.”  In the other, there is the temptation to doubt our calling when we are forced to wait.  In one, “faith stays true to God by not doing what it is tempted to do” and in the other “faith stays true to God by doing what it is tempted not to.” 223

Saving your life

I promise that this is my last post from Luci Shaw’s The Crime of Living Cautiously. In her final chapter, she is challenging the reader (us) to choose live a faith-filled, risk-taking life for God. Isn’t this what Jesus said, “If you want to save your life, you must lose it.”

“The life we hoard, clutch, protect, safeguard out of fear or timidity ends up being of little use to us or anyone else, least of all to God and his kingdom.”

“The cliff edge of our anxiety about the future may indicate that Dod is calling us to a new and different level o faith. When we walk, praying for guidance, to the edge of all the light we have and breathlessly take that first step into the foggy mystery of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen: either God will provide us with something rock-solid to land on and stand on, or he will teach us how to fly.” 137

Two alternatives

Luci Shaw in The Crime of Living Dangerously says there are two alternatives for the followers of Jesus today.

” . . . to continue merely existing in the dull, assumed safety of what we think we know, a stagnant pond of sameness, remaining blindly complacent about our unfruitful, conventional (though still uncertain) little lives, or to dive into the unknown and unexpected, trusting God to carry us along on his rushing river of living into the freshness of new realms, larger horizons.”  115

Wow, this sounds just like what I was reading last night in Ruth Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. She is writing about responding to the calling of God.

“Some people seem to make it though life without ever having to wrestle with the fatal question. They seem to move through life with ease–making a living, enjoying the fruits of their labor, taking what seems to be an easy or at least a clearly marked path to security and success–while others seem to be called to make committments that require us to do strange things and orient our lives toward realities that others do not see.” 83

“It’s hard to keep answering a calling that continually takes us right out to the edge of our faith and our human limitations. Sometimes we are tempted to feel resentful.

“But a true leader is one who has heard the fatal question.  This is a person who has seen a vision of what could be and who continues to take steps in that direction against all odds.  . . . because every time we go deep to listen, we know that what God is calling us to do is ours to do and the path before us is ours to walk.  We know it is the meaning of our life.  And so we say yes.  For better and for worse, we say yes to meaning.  We say yes to God.” 84

My religion is S 11

Leaving Singapore and on the way to the airport last week when our taxi driver told us his religion was S 11. My wife figured it out quickly but it took me longer to realize he was referring to $. We had a lively discussion about the role of money and faith. In his view, all religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism etc.) had the goal to get/maintain POWER. I tried to encourage him to look to the person of Jesus Christ who had his priorities right, even if others do not. Interestingly, another friend told me that he had heard from a businessman in Singapore that the fastest way to get rich was to become a pastor! Even a “mature” friend of mine on a remote, rural island here recently told me how he was considering a group that promised healing and wealth were inherent in the atonement. Something wrong here folks.

Read last week a couple of articles that sadly point out the distortions with regard to faith and money in much of the public Christianity. Michael Gerson has one on Faith’s Real Riches and Michelle Singletary has one on Does God want you poor? Both of these are from the Washington Post and the latter article has a number of helpful links on the subject. I did download the articles and saved them on my computer in case you need them.

Fear and Faith part 2

A focus on faith by Luci Shaw in The Crime of Living Cautiously

“Faith is really taking the risk of moving, when God calls me, into the realm of the unknown and unseen and only dimly understood. It means that I may have to give up my closely held control of my life and destiny, my fate and my future—a thought alarming enough to keep some of us from moving at all.” 49

“Faith is a widening of the imagination. Imaginative faith takes off the blinders, moves beyond pinched, linear thinking into the wide, unfathomable possibilities into which the Holy Spirit invites.” 52

“Because ignorance is often considered bliss—it seems better not to know bad news, . . . too many of us guard ourselves from a potentially painful truth.” 54

“Every hour we walk into unknown territory, sometimes as threatening to our faith as the den of lions . . . For some it may mean moving into a wilderness of the spirit, where doubts and despairs besiege us . . . I’ve learned from experience in such a time I am being called upon to wait, and in the waiting God will send me the gift of his presence again. I learn a lot as I wait, and my watchword in this unknown and fearful territory is continue to be faithful and obedient.”

“When beauty and risk interact, an almost unspeakable dynamic is released. I want the Holy Spirit to be the “something that grabs me,” so that I too am eager to yield to the impulse to push the life of faith and the life of the mind to extremes. I trust that as I let go and free my imagination to be informed by God’s cosmic meaning, I too will experience those “possibilities of unexpected beauty.” 56-57

Fear and Faith part 1

Luci Shaw in The Crime of Living Cautiously talks about fear and faith. The following deal with fear:

“Denial of fear is as foolish as fear itself. It is never courage simply to deny that we are afraid. Fear is part of human nature and experience; to deny it is to deny being human.” 47

“Bravery is only as brave as the strength of the fear it must overcome.” 48

“The principle to be followed is feel the fear, but do it anyway. Run the risk of looking foolish should you fail. Shoulder aside the fear, as you would a curtain in a doorway as you pass through.”

Is this honoring to God? It is, if it is done in obedience to Him.” 48

What motivates our risk-taking? I may be motivated and moved toward risk by the desire to prove myself, or to be a star, or to make my mark, or to show my superiority to my friends who are warier of hazard than I am. If that is true, I may be entering the dangerous arena of personal obsession with power.

Have we learned to distinguish between wise fear (facing real danger) and false fear (personal insecurity)? . . . Have we recognized that risk is a means, not an end?” 49