Faith, Full of Faith, and the Faithful.

What makes having faith such a challenge?  I fear that sometimes it is the ‘faithful’.  I was painfully reminded of this again today. 

Invited into a desperate situation, I went to pray for the healing of a Christian woman stricken with brain cancer.  A large, loving gathering of friends came together on Jackie’s behalf.  She is confined to a wheelchair because the tumor has paralyzed her left side, and she was exhausted from her rigorous treatment schedule. 

The scene made me think of the paralytic’s friends in the Bible—you know, the ones who actually cut a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching, so that they could get their friend to him—lowering the man’s mat through the opening, to position him right in front of Jesus.  That is effectively just what we did!  Let me tell you, not only was the room full of love for Jackie, but the room was full of faith as we prayed in earnest for the Great Physician to come and do what only he can do.  And like the New Testament friends, we will leave her with Jesus, while we continue to faithfully intercede on her behalf.  ( I was thankful to be a part of what God is planning to do in this sweet woman’s life. )

But it was on the way home that I asked my hosting friend (I had only just met her, because she had asked me to drive with her to another city to pray for her friend), about her own faith experience—only to find out that she really struggles.  ‘Seems she has been bitten by the poisonous asp of Christian judgment, and just can’t quite bring herself to go to church, feeling condemned before even entering!  Oh, she would like to—don’t get me wrong!  She believes in God, but it hurts when zealous well-meaning God-fearing Christian friends tell her that her sister who just converted to Judaism is on her way to Hell, among other things. 

Ours is to love, not to judge. 

It seems like I meet so many people who need to go to a 12-step recovery program to heal from the wounds inflicted on them by Christians, or the church.  Why are Christians more known for judgmentalism than love and compassion? 

Have other people—religious people—kept you from an active faith in God?  Has the church burned you in some way, so that you have lost your way in your relationship with the one who loves you more than life itself??

‘Without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists ….  I see the trees bend, the leaves flutter and swirl in a circle, I see a woman’s hair blow, and a tumbleweed roll across the highway.  All of these suggest the existence of the unseen force of the wind.  I do not see God, but I see the effects of where he is, where he is at work, and where he has been—all of which speak loudly of his existence, and bolster my faith in him.  Then why do we let things or people or life get in the way of getting to really know him, and growing in relationship with him? 

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord…and we pray that all unity may one day be restored.  Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love…” we sang by campfires in the 70s. Really?  How the Lord’s heart hurts when it is the very people who claim his name who turn folks away from following him!

Who do you know who has been hurt by Christians who were hypocritical, judgmental, and in short, unloving?  Begin to pray for them, reach out to them, and if it is you—ask God to reveal himself to you; after all, you were not created for religion, you were created for relationship with your Heavenly Father.  Don’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that.

Let’s be the ones who are growing in faith~

       Let’s be the ones who are faithful~

              Let’s be the ones who take risks to love and give

              Like those who are full of faith, full of God’s love!

Faith . . . being faithful--something to think about.

Christine