F is for Faith

And also for forgetfulness!

By that I mean, that I tend to talk off the cuff and I promptly forget what I’ve said 5 seconds later, never mind a whole week later!

But sometimes I forget about my faith in my everyday life too.

Mostly this happens when things are going just terribly. I lose faith in God’s abilities and in try to fix things on my own. Those of you who have seen my handyperson attempts will know what a disaster this is! But that faith that I am losing, that I am forgetting isn’t the faith that comes from God. That lost faith is my own lack of understanding, it’s my own doubts and insecurities coming to the surface.

I’m sure that you don’t care too much about my doubts and insecurities, and if you do it’s probably because I’m laying on a sofa paying you big dollars to care! Since that isn’t the case let’s look instead at the faith that comes from God!

I’ve been throwing this faith word around willy-nilly but haven’t really taken the time to talk about what it is. To do so I want to throw a couple of bible verse at you Ephesians 2:8-9 and Galatians 3:23-28. So faith is a gift, according to Ephesians and according to Galatians it is what frees us from the obligations of the law. So for our definition: Faith is a free gift that frees us from the obligations of the law. That’s scripture, baby!

But of course faith isn’t something that exists only as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, it’s an action; something that we see happening!

We are given numerous examples of what faith looks like from the Old Testament. Peruse through Hebrews 11 for a bit and there are some amazing examples of faith. And how beautifully written is Hebrews too by the way? Just a bit of Hebrews love is all. But for serious, go have a look, and here are some fun faith bits (like Alpha-bits?) in Hebrews!

An addendum to our definition “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” A couple things stand out: hope and conviction. We talk a lot about wishing and hoping (and thinking and praying) but it always seems like a 50/50 probability. It might happen, or it might not. I hope that it won’t snow. Now there is a possibility that it might not snow, although it’s more likely that it will. Hope doesn’t seem to have a sense of certainty attached to it; unless, of course, you read it in Hebrews, in which case the next phrase is attached, the conviction of things not seen. Our faith is not something that we view as something that might or might not happen. We are convinced that it is real; it is true, even though we cannot see it. And in a world full of people living out the adage “Unless I see it with my own two eyes…” (are pirates exempt from this?) the idea of being fully convinced of something without the physical, scientific proof is really quite the anomaly.

But lest we think that we are the only ones considered fools for our faith, continue reading Hebrews 11. Some of our greatest known biblical heroes, known for their strong faith, found themselves in this same boat. Abel had great faith and was killed for it. Abraham wandered in an unknown land for his faith. Moses cast off the privileges associated with being Egyptian royalty and lived the life of a nomadic Israelite outcast. These are our great biblical heroes. The reason why is because they were faithful. Even though they had more to gain in placing their faith in the ways of the world: keeping the best of their crop for themselves; staying at home where they would be guaranteed all the comforts they had worked for; and living in the lap of luxury rather than living out the rest of your life in the unforgiving desert, that isn’t what they chose. They took the more difficult path of faith, and even though they didn’t see the rewards during their lifetime, we see them now as having been rewarded for their faith.

Now, we aren’t being called in faith in the same way. We don’t make sacrifices, there isn’t really a desert nearby and Egyptian royalty is essentially a death sentence. So what are we supposed to do?

If we look in James we’re told that our faith is lived out through our deeds towards others. And you’re going to freak out and say SOLA GRATIA, SOLA FIDE, SOLA SCRIPTURA!!!!!! DIDN’T YOU LISTEN DURING THE REFORMATION SERMON!!!!! And of course, we’ve already defined faith as a free gift that we can’t earn, but we also said that it isn’t something that exists only in definition. It is meant to be used! I always thought that the cruelest thing a person could do was to buy a toy, say a Barbie, for a kid and then tell them that they had to keep it in the box and not play with it because, of course, toys are meant to be played with. If someone is giving you a gift, you then should have the ability to use it, to play with it. This is the same with our gift of faith. It’s not meant to sit on the shelf with our collector Barbie, it’s supposed to be used. We have the great example of how the people of the Old Testament used their faith, and we are called to do the same thing. We gotta have faith.