Chapter 2:: What Is Faith?

Yes! LOVE the story that kicks off this chapter -- football coach bringing his players back to the 'fundamental concepts' of the game. Love it because it's SO effective! Right in that paragraph Wendy says, "In a similar fashion, many Christians focus so much on the minute details of their problems that they lose sight of the fundamental concepts that govern life for a believer in Christ."

This has actually been on my mind a lot this past week or so! I just finished a book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything (highly recommend it!), which said something that stuck & really made me think!

We never leave the gospel, ever -- even as we move into deeper theological waters. As Tim Keller says, the gospel isn't simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A to Z of Christianity. All theology is an explosion of the gospel, a further articulation of the gospel in all its facets, meticulously unfolding all it's liberating implications and empowering benefits.

That's convicting! I'm so eager & quick to "move on". I so often need to pause, get back to the basics of the gospel!

Wowza, sorry about the tangent! So, faith... being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I think this fits very nicely under the category of things we're tempted to 'move on' from and tempted to believe that we 'get it'. When I think of what this might look like, it makes me think of the constant battle of identifying & believing truth vs. lies (about yourself, about God, the world, your life, etc.). When we choose to believe truth, we agree with God and almost convince ourselves of what 'we do not see'. Yeah, I might feel _____, but what's true is that God says ___, ___, and ___ about me -- in faith, I choose to believe truth. We can get so lost, confused, distracted by our circumstances that we forget what's true. When you realize something is false, you can't help but be convinced about only what is true.

So what about you? Be honest! I have a long list of these myself (from top of pg. 33). Pray & ask the Lord to search & expose what's really going on in your heart. Then ask Him to tell you what's true about Himself, about your situation. Jot them down in your journal...

• I may not have ____, but      (what's true about you, God, your life, etc.)     .
• My life may not be ______, but _________. 
• I might never _______, but __________. 
• I'm not happy with ______, but ____________.
• I feel _________, but ___________.

He loves you, dear sister. He longs to capture your heart & mind with His truth -- His truth will set you free (John 8:31-32)!

Ah! This chapter was so good!! I'll leave you with some things I'll be pondering today...

God is, and His existence alone puts the rest of life in perspective. (Pg 33)

When God heats up our lives, working out our pride, selfishness, and general wrong thinking, the resulting purified life is so much sweeter. (Pg. 36)

When we face uncertain times, we must sift our responses through the filter of this truth. (Pg. 37)

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." (Pg. 39) -C.S. Lewis