This really struck me. It's from Journeys beyond the Comfort Zone by David W.F. Wong. (I highly recommend the book, by the way. Seriously. A must read. Admittedly, at first the title kind of had me thinking - 'um, ok. I wonder if this is going to be just like every other book about "comfort zones" that I've read, but not so. I'm really quite moved by it. My faith is being moved by the way in which God moved through this man - through his experiences and his words, his insights and his faith.)
"Abraham froze, his hand in mid-air. He knew that his faith had not been in vain. The process of faith was complete. James tells us that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).
Perhaps, James was thinking of conception and birth. Between the two points is a time-frame when the embryo grows into an infant ready to leave the womb. The baby reaches full term and is then born into the world. In the same way, everyone who is tested by the Lord must endure the full term and emerge mature and complete. Abraham underwent the full term, right up to the moment when he would have plunged the knife into his only son's heart.
Unfortunately, many of us fail to go the full term in our faith. When we are tested, we give up. Or we go part of the way, and when it gets too difficult, we give up. We are in effect aborting our faith in the womb. Instead of giving birth to the full-term faith, we are effecting an abortion of part-term faith. James tell us that Abraham's faith was made complete by what he did (James 2:20-22). His faith was made complete by his action. He took faith to its conclusion, to its full term."
When I don't have constant, ever-present accountability, it's easy for me to slip into the "happy place" of - 'Wow! I must be getting this faith thing down. I'm meeting life's challenges without hating life or myself or the people around me, in fact, I'm pretty upbeat, even joyful, about even the most challenging stuff. By all outward actions and expressed thoughts, this may be so. But lately I've been becoming more and more aware of a laziness in self-reflection, of addressing the internal questions and strife and gaps and incompleteness. Without a doubt, my faith is ever increasing and growing as I encounter and re-encounter God through many experiences and through many people, as they ask the deep, probing, founding questions of faith and the foundations from which mine grows. Yet when it comes to challenging myself to grow in faith beyond those foundations, I often feel overwhelmed by the energy and concentration this takes, and so put it off. Perhaps something akin to writing a term paper (except bigger), you can only put off addressing what you've so carefully or non-chalantly tucked away for later for so long before you feel panic at the realization that the due date is a whole heck-of-a-lot sooner than you remember it being. Your procrastination has left you with a feeling of urgency with a need to start researching right now. This is me. Right now. I've been both carefully and non-chalantly tucking away questions and critical thinking for later (for a few months), reasoning that 'I have lessons to plan', 'I need to write this letter... finish this application... email this friend... meet with this person'... Actually, the application for the ECHO internship was what triggered my panic 'I've-been-procrastinating-too-long' button. It caused me to reflect in a way that I hadn't taken the time to, and asked me questions I hadn't asked myself, for quite a while. It's easy for me to be self-reflective and question-asking when I'm around people who prompt me to. It's not so easy when I have to do most of the reflecting and question-asking by myself.
I don't want to flippantly throw out the ignorant/naive/arrogant/pat-answer comment: 'Yeah, 'course I want my faith to be complete! Bring on the trials!' Yet I do believe that it is through trials and pain that we are able to experience God ever-present in our loneliness and aloneness, his wholeness and completeness in our brokeness, his security in our insecurities, the abundance of his blessings in giving up the pitances that we try so desperately to cling to.
Reflecting on my brokenness is painful. Reflecting on my insecurities makes me want to cling to them even harder... a disintegrating security blanket... eventually you've got to grow up and let it go. Reflecting on what God may ask of me... a little scary. Will I be able to give it? Yet so desperately wanting to be complete in faith... no stone left unturned...
I'm not sure how to end this. But I guess that's the point. I'm 23. God's work has only just begun in me. Both scary and exhilarating. It leaves my heart pounding, but wanting more. grins The ultimate adventure. I couldn't ask for a better Guide. We've started off toward "The Forest of No Return" (harkening back to childhood), shoddy unmarked "path" at best, walking sticks in hand - rough terrain ahead. No compass or map, save the Word. Kind of like Highlander or STEP, the only thing you know is the step in front of you. The true test of faith and trust. Each day is a fresh start. Expect blisters and mosquito bites, and maybe if you're lucky you can avoid the black flies, miserable little buggers that they are. It's always good to remember that "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt." ;) And of course, the more the merrier.
(Not) the end.
1 comment:
happy birthday! =) 'his faith was made complete in his action' - that's pretty encouraging to me. i feel like faith is such an elusive, unreal idea sometimes, not as concrete and visible as i would like it to be. i feel so often like i'm swimming in a void and jumping from star to star - at the last moment managing to catch enough of a glimpse of my purpose to direct my clumsy body to the proper hold, and fighting against myself the whole way. And it's good to know that the actions i take in pursuing that purpose and the One who gave it to me will help to complete my faith. not just get me further along the road and further up the endless coil, but complete it in the final circle of eternity - in Him that brings life.
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