Luke 17:5-10
Faith, can we measure it? Do you take out your faith and say mine is better than yours? In some ways we have gotten as confused as the disciples about faith. This is Jesus' point with the mustard seed and the servant parable, there is nothing we can do to increase or decrease our faith, it just is.
Paul says "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." So we cannot measure faith, or see it, or touch it this definition says its is based on a hope and evident in what we can't see. Helpful, right? Some days it seems we want things to be measurable, tangible. They are easier that way. If we can rack it all up there must be a way to win the spiritual game. The law gives us something, but then we look at Jesus who touched those who were unclean (the leper, the dead, all the women of question) and healed on the Sabbath, or even fed himself on that day and we don't get a clear picture of using the law as a measuring stick.
Faith is worked out on fear and trembling, in sighs too deep for words. In other words faith just is. When Namaan, the Assyrian leper comes to the prophet Elisha, he doesn't have faith. He is not asked to change his faith in foreign idols, he is only required to go and wash seven times in the river Jordan and he doesn't even have faith in that. He states there are much cleaner rivers back home. It's his servant that convinces him to wash and follow the instructions and he is made clean.
Paul writes about faith 166 times. Faith is important, but faith is not something we make. It is said that Mother Theresa at the end of her life work felt no connection with God anymore, she continued in her work, in faith. In faith of her first call, in faith because she still continued her relationship with God, in faith that it all was real. The greatest faith was in the people who came to Jesus for healing. Jesus credits them with this faith. The centurion, the woman bleeding for twelve years, the friends of the paralytic who was lowered through his roof all of these had faith.
Faith is our hope. Faith helps us wrestle with the times we don't feel God, the times we don't see goodness in the world around us, the times we doubt we can make it. So no, we can't increase our faith in any tangible way. Maybe we can learn to recognize it in the world around us. Like when someone pays the rest of your bill, or your whole bill, or when a child loves and trusts you, or when the sunset is so beautiful it paints itself inside of you these all are pictures of the intangible faith.
So go and see where faith might lie. In the smallest of gifts, in the promise of a babe to the world, in the light of hope burning bright. We may not increase it, but we can start the journey of trust, faith in what God has called us to be.
Faith, can we measure it? Do you take out your faith and say mine is better than yours? In some ways we have gotten as confused as the disciples about faith. This is Jesus' point with the mustard seed and the servant parable, there is nothing we can do to increase or decrease our faith, it just is.
Paul says "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." So we cannot measure faith, or see it, or touch it this definition says its is based on a hope and evident in what we can't see. Helpful, right? Some days it seems we want things to be measurable, tangible. They are easier that way. If we can rack it all up there must be a way to win the spiritual game. The law gives us something, but then we look at Jesus who touched those who were unclean (the leper, the dead, all the women of question) and healed on the Sabbath, or even fed himself on that day and we don't get a clear picture of using the law as a measuring stick.
Faith is worked out on fear and trembling, in sighs too deep for words. In other words faith just is. When Namaan, the Assyrian leper comes to the prophet Elisha, he doesn't have faith. He is not asked to change his faith in foreign idols, he is only required to go and wash seven times in the river Jordan and he doesn't even have faith in that. He states there are much cleaner rivers back home. It's his servant that convinces him to wash and follow the instructions and he is made clean.
Paul writes about faith 166 times. Faith is important, but faith is not something we make. It is said that Mother Theresa at the end of her life work felt no connection with God anymore, she continued in her work, in faith. In faith of her first call, in faith because she still continued her relationship with God, in faith that it all was real. The greatest faith was in the people who came to Jesus for healing. Jesus credits them with this faith. The centurion, the woman bleeding for twelve years, the friends of the paralytic who was lowered through his roof all of these had faith.
Faith is our hope. Faith helps us wrestle with the times we don't feel God, the times we don't see goodness in the world around us, the times we doubt we can make it. So no, we can't increase our faith in any tangible way. Maybe we can learn to recognize it in the world around us. Like when someone pays the rest of your bill, or your whole bill, or when a child loves and trusts you, or when the sunset is so beautiful it paints itself inside of you these all are pictures of the intangible faith.
So go and see where faith might lie. In the smallest of gifts, in the promise of a babe to the world, in the light of hope burning bright. We may not increase it, but we can start the journey of trust, faith in what God has called us to be.
Comments
Post a Comment