Ok good, it was amazing right? One of the most stunning visualizations for faith I thought came during one of Bethany's surfing competitions. The imagery was that sometimes faith is paddling out into the deep waters looking for a wave when as far as you can see the sea is calm and still. I was left pondering that as I drove home. Do I exhibit that faith in my life? Chasing after something I want badly at the core of who I am, despite everyone around me thinking I am crazy, there's nothing there, having faith that God is in control whether I find a wave or not, making myself ready and available. She charged ahead and I am so impressed with her for that! There are dreams and goals that I have for myself, my family and some are things that I feel like God would want me to do for example ways I desire to serve him. But as I scan the horizon the surface is flat and glassy and I see nothing that indicates that anything is coming my way. I think I have a tendency to float along then, "waiting on God's timing", bobbing up and down in the waters of my faith and being dragged along by stronger currents, the forces of this world, telling myself that "I'm ready, but God isn't moving in this area yet". Doesn't seem like real faith, just treading water. I want to be like Bethany, a soul surfer, I want to dig in and paddle like mad toward the plans and future God has to prosper me, so I will be there when my wave comes...
I know I took the metaphor and ran like a wide receiver with that thing (there you go with a football analogy for Super Bowl Sunday!) but it struck me as a significant challenge to myself to change my heart, my motivation, my efforts, my faith. I had another thought on the way home (oh brother, I should have stopped at one right?) Yesterday I was trying to hear if my three year old was getting into trouble in the other room. So I shushed my 6 year old and got very still to listen. She immediately inquired "Momma, why do you close your eyes when you are listening?" Very observant! And then tonight I thought I smelled cigarettes in our van, this has been happening more and more lately because of a little boy we drive to church on Sunday nights smells strongly of cigarettes from his home and I am getting paranoid/neurotic that it is slowly infiltrating the ventilation system of my van. So as I was driving I caught a whiff of it and I immediately reached for the volume on the radio and cranked it off so I could breath deeply to determine the "purity" of the air. And I almost laughed out loud realizing I had turned off the radio so I could smell better.
I can only imagine that it is a neurological truth that if you suppress one sensory system another will act as stronger or at least you will be more in tune with that sense. How about our spiritual senses? If you are waiting to hear God's voice, perhaps you should close your eyes tight and listen. If you are waiting to "see" where God is leading you, how about being still before him. Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see." If that is not a reason to start paddling I don't know what is?
Chris Tomlin says it pretty well...
1 Peter 1:7 says "These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Refined gold, like the wedding band in the picture is a beautiful metaphor for the purification of our hearts as the shadow falls into a heart across the page. Every single person reading this is going through trials, big and small. We have all got "stuff" and the Lord knows it is how we come through that refining that counts. We can easily be burned up in the fire. Or we can plant ourselves firmly on Christ, on his word, on his promises. And with that steadfast and purified heart that will give us the faith and the courage to start swimming.
I am encouraged by these things. I hope you are too. I actually lost 6 lbs when I weighed myself Tue so I met two of my January goals. I am mostly keeping with the same goals for Feb, I will give you the final lowdown some time this week. I was really feeling adrift, but these thoughts have given me encouragement to stay the course and move forward. I did better this last week than the week before and so on and so forth. I am going to try to do even better this week. I am working on being strong and courageous. Time to start paddling....
No comments:
Post a Comment