“Women received their dead raised to life again: and others
were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better
resurrection:” – Heb 11:35
The path of faith does not always yield a positive outcome
on this side of heaven. In this world, there is entropy of just about anything
you can name – physical or other wise. We all wear out, we all have unfulfilled
dreams and aspirations and the day we die, our inbox will not be neatly
arranged and all tasks there solved.
We have to be a people who allow interruption of
practically anything: life, health, prosperity and the constancy of family.
They are all in flux and temporary. So here are the questions:
Can you live with disappointment and…
Can you live with loss and…
Can you live with interruption and…
Can you live with estrangement and…
Can you live with separation and…
Can you live life on a solitary road and…
….not lose your faith?
How does our Lord view such people who find it within
themselves to live life and not turn back to the world and lose their faith?
As sons and daughters. As brethren. Pilgrims too good for
the life they have lived and what they have had to deal with on a daily basis.
There is a great deception in dysfunctional religious
groups. It has to do with focus. What the focus is so many times is on the end
game. In other words, it is a focus on a future where the one is pressed and lives
with focus on being in a position to be rewarded and not punished. To be one of
the elect, remnant…call it what you want. But the question is does that kind of
life lead to godliness?. If one lives in such fear on not being in that number,
how can a life produce fruit that pleases the Almighty. It seems to me that overcoming
is not the outward act of discipline nor is it the collection of works that
commend us to God.
So what is it?
It is the pure definition of faith as found in Hebrews 11,
the entire chapter. In that chapter acts done by those confirmed their faith…in
one and only one sight: God’s. The testament written of them was that in it all
they remained faithful. They believed and kept believing in the One who has no
name. They were exposed to the worst of life and yet the best of it because
whatever measure of faith they had, it only shined the brighter as the world
and circumstance honed it to a sharp edge.
This is the true measure of faith: Living in all the throes
of life in all its ugliness and to not grow cold towards the Almighty. It is
faith that causes me to look in the heavens and proclaim ‘It is not your fault,
Father’ It is my own and the frailties and imperfection of those who even also
call upon your name.
I am learning to take life one day at a time. Live it and
be thankful for every breath. In that I find peace. In that I have hope that
whatever is written in the books about me, the God I serve commends me to Life
and counts me among the ones who have gone before.
I may not receive my dead back to life. I accept all that
life may bring in all its hardship and towards God my heart is still full.
