Blind Faith

Not for me. I can't accept this. If I were to apply this principle to my personal beliefs I wouldn't be a Christian. There are a lot more attractive options on offer. If it were right to simply believe in something without any evidence that it is valid then I would pick a religion which offered me a nice comfortable ride without demanding too much from me in return. Some new age twaddle that involves auras and energy lines and says we are 'all part of the cosmic order'.

God went through the sacrifice of dying for us so why would he leave us to our own conclusions when it comes to trusting Him? Blind Faith is exactly NOT what he requires. So here is the question: If you don't have solid evidence of God working through Christ in your life why are you a Christian?

Here is another one: Have you asked for him to give you evidence?

Again: If you have asked him and you haven't got an answer, why do you think that is?

Perhaps you don't want the answer. Inside you know that once you get the evidence you can't ignore it. You can't go back and nothing will ever be the same again. More may be demanded from you that you are prepared to give. If this is the case God will never answer your prayer because he loves you too much to watch you turn away from him like that. He will always give you the option not to go down that route.

If you do ask him to do something extraordinary, and have the courage to mean it, God will leave you in no doubt about what you should do. You wont need blind faith.

It's a family thing

A few weeks ago during a Sunday service I noticed a man in front of me with his two year old daughter on his lap. The child was facing backward over his shoulder, looking calmly into blank space and sucking her thumb. With the other hand she was gently caressing her father's face, running her fingertips over his cheeks, nose and eyes. Both father and child were caught in a moment of love. The child secure and safe, knowing without reasoning that she was loved absolutely. The father enraptured, asking nothing more as a parent than this simple act of love from his daughter. If you had offered him a million pounds he would not have traded that moment.

This turned out to be the answer to a question that I didn't get until later in the week. At our home group many of us were expressing our struggle to discern God's purpose for us and we started to pray about this. It came to me that God wants a lot of things from us and for us. We know that we have work to do but before all that, above everything else He simply wants to love us and to be loved in return.

1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3

Most of us know what unrequited love feels like. Now imagine how it feels to love someone so much you would die, indeed have died, for them - and they hardly give you a second thought.

Filled as we are with inspirational books with amazing stories of people who have done great things for God and quite literally changed the lives of others, it is easy to get caught up in the desire to fight on the mission field. But just like that father and his daughter in church, although God wants us to have wonderful fulfilled lives the most important thing we can do first is to love him and feel his love for us. Then and only then can we grow up and carry out his plans.

There is a passage which we have heard many times at weddings but I doubt that Paul meant it to be used to illustrate love between a man and a woman when he wrote it. There is another way to read it:

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13

Prayer

I have a problem with intercessional prayers. When I sit in church and someone says "and we pray for Africa,,,," I think 'what, all of it?'

I read that you can't expect God to answer a prayer unless you really believe that it could happen. When we pray for the millions suffering in the Sudan do we really think that something will change? Or are we just praying because we want it to change?

In that case it is a wish, not a prayer.

Even though my heart breaks when I see the reports on the TV I don't really believe it will change.

If God did relieve the suffering it would not change us. It would happen all over again, somewhere else, some other time.

It is our hearts which need to change.