Lived Out Loud

Just a matter of hours ago, I read a eulogy of a man on a friend's Facebook page. She wrote of his faith and of his drive to draw people toward Christ. At first read, it sounded like he was some sort of cancer patient. One of those people that just knows his time is short. I've known a few people like that, and assumed he was one of them.

I was wrong.

This young man, not even 24 years old, had plans for this past weekend. I have found and read through eulogy upon eulogy about him, trying to piece together who he was and his last moments here. I visited his Facebook, which is open to the public and saw a post from Friday afternoon about how he was going out with friends to a triathalon and was inviting others to come. I read a note from a friend who was with him Friday, just hours before his life changed forever. I just received an e-mail from one of his close friends, who I happen to know from college (it's a small world after all). This is what it said:

I just graduated from Grace College this past Saturday (the 8th) and that was the last time I saw {him}, he drove from Grand Rapids to my graduation in Indiana, then right back to MI for his brothers graduation from Hillsdale. My open house was Sunday afternoon at the parsonage that belongs to my home church in MI, I used to live there, but now the youth pastor does, and {he} had been renting a room in the house. He had posted on the wall for the event (for my open house) "I probably won't show up, but I'll be there".... a joke on the fact that he lived there, but boy oh boy did that turn out to be true or what...

He had plans. Plans that did not involve losing his life. Still, the faith he lived his life with was vibrant. It reflected a constant awareness of the weight of eternity.

On Friday night, hours after his last post on Facebook, his last Frisbee match with friends, this young man was involved in a serious bicycling accident that caused severe head trauma. On Monday evening, he met his Saviour face to face, and though I have never met the young man, it is clear to me that he received a hearty, "Well done, my child, enter into the glory of the Lord."

We just don't know. If we knew today would be our last, what would we do? Would we live our faith out loud? Many do, and that's why I thought, at first glance, that this man had resigned himself to death. That wasn't the case. This man had resigned himself to Christ, and lived every day as if that day he would have to answer to his Saviour.

Can we say the same?

How Silent is Faith?

Faith is such a tricky thing to try and navigate at times. We have such a variety of examples of faith in the Bible that it can be very difficult to figure out what faith truly is and how it is supposed to flesh out in our lives.

A college professor of mine once stood for abortion (yes, at a Bible college of all things). His reasoning was that if the baby would harm the mother then the mother's act of faith was to abort the baby...
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We didn't get it either. In fact, we, as a class, loudly protested saying that faith would do nothing. He began to pull Biblical examples of faith being actions not stillness. By the end of class, we were thouroughly frustrated and confused, all trying to figure out this new faith we had just been presented with.

Here's my take on it. Faith is shown to other men through our works. That is what James is all about. Faith to God is shown through our belief in Him, which is what the Gospel is all about.

Going back to the abortion debate. In the eyes of men, is there faith involved in fear? No. If I abort my unborn child because I am concerned that he or she may take my life, is that faith? Personally, I don't think so.

My professor would say, "What if there were children at home? It would be selfish to die for the sake of one." Would it? Isn't that what Christ did? Offered Himself for the sake of one? Even if only one person had come to Christ, woudl that have been enough? Yes, I believe so. I just struggle with this logic of taking matters into our own hands and then with our mouths confessing to be depending on God.

However, faith does not sit at home and do nothing either. For instance, if God calls you to be a medical missionary, you just can't sit around and expect a medical mission board to walk up to you and say, "Hey! Would you like to join our team? We know you haven't had any schooling, but figure we can train you." Does that make sense? No!

If God calls you to be a medical missionary, then your act of faith is to go to school, get your degree and begin pursuing positions as a medical missionary. The key is to trust every step to Him, and that's where Proverbs 3:5-6 come in. Sometimes our steps do not make human sense. God sense is really the only sense that matters.

This is all something I have been muttling through as I try to determine God's next step for me. I know it now, but there is this hesitation. I know the end objective, I just haven't figured out the process at this point. Does faith just sit back and wait for God to move or does it gently knock on the door and say, "Alright, God, if this is it, I will walk through. If not, I will wait for You to show me where I am going." Is that still faith? To pursue what you believe to be the place where God is taking you? Can you be a medical missionary without first becoming something medical??

Not that I am planning on becoming a medical missionary. It's just musing, trying to figure out where God begins and my strength is of none effect. At what point does God say, "Ok, hands off!"? Interesting thought, isn't it...

A Light in Dark Places

Today the sun is shining brightly. I walked out the door this morning into a balmy and beautiful 70 degree day. It's beautiful. Perfect, even (well, not really). Still, the reality is sinking in more and more that we live in a dark world.

At this very moment, across the room from me, a friend of mine is getting ready to enter the lions den. She is taking a Danielesque stand for her Saviour and the opportunity gives me goosebumps. To think it all started with a paper.

She is taking classes at a local college. A local secular college. For further clarification, this is a local secular college outside of DC. Meaning that this college isn't just tolerant, it is a forceful tolerant- pushing and teaching that students should believe in evolution. Pushing and teaching that students should be tolerant of homosexuality. It is an actively secular college.

It is for an English class at this actively secular college that she wrote a paper expounding how nature proves (yes, proves) that there has to be a Creator. Already, she has taken heat for it. After announcing her topic, she was e-mailed by her professor. He had provided a link to a video "proving" evolution. She was unscathed and pushed on. She turned in the paper last week, but the beautiful thing is that her paper is not an anti-evolution paper as much as it is a pro-Creator paper (not to be confused with procreation). She presented the facts found in nature and left the reader to decide. It was a beautiful paper, and I'm sure her Father was proud.

In fact, I'm positive He is. Today, in just hours, she will stand before a body of her actively secular classmates and point them all to her Creator through creation. What an opportunity! What a thrill!

It made me think of how often we forget to shine. Instead of being a light to light the way to Christ, we become an interrogation lamp blinding those who would seek Him. She did not get in anyone's face. In a simple and honest fashion she presented her Saviour in the way He chose to present Himself to us (through nature). Now, He has given her more room to shine. He has given her an audience before which she can stand and say, "Let me introduce you to my God."

We live in a dark dark world. A world desparately in need of hope. If we are willing to shine, willing to glow, He will, without a doubt, use us to show Himself.

A Call to Show Love

Over the past month, I have been intently studying the nature of true love reflected in the love God has for us and the love He has called us to. This weekend, those reflections were brought to a new love as I celebrated the marriage of a dear friend.

We, as humans, are given a high honor. We were created with the ability to love and to communicate that love to one another. Marriage is a unique, even divine, expression of that love. The love a husband and wife have for each other serves as a picture of God's love for the world. In that, it is a serious calling, not something to be taken lightly. Not just because one is responsible for the other but because one is responsible for how the world views their relationship with the other. Marriage is serious, holy business because it is meant to reflect God in His most intimate potrayal.

For that matter, the love we have for each other (married or not) is a picture of God's love for the world. God loves the world; that goes without question. The problem is, the world doesn't know that yet. How are they supposed to see that if we aren't showing them?

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

I John 3:18

Spoon Fed Faith

Two days ago, I happened upon a video about The Naked Gospel, a recent Amazon.com best seller about the truths of the Christian faith. I haven't read it, but the video itself was, at first, offensive. The author of the book, Andrew Farley, is a minister, though I question his adherence to Scripture since he states in one of his sermons that he once married a woman to a corpse (something just seems off about that). At any rate, in this 'teaser' video, he asked ten questions about our faith. Ten questions that most Christians would answer "true." For instance:

Every time we sin, we must repent and ask forgiveness: True or False.

Christians must give ten percent of their income to the church: True of False.

The answer, in his opinion, to every one of the questions was "False." Now, I am not saying that I agree with the first glance of that, but I also know, as a writer, that we purposefully create controversy in order to grab the reader's attention. As I looked up reviews for the book, it seems that Mr. Farley based his answers on different perspectives and definitions of words. Still, the controversy was well appreciated, especially since I am in the beginning stages of writing a book entitled, "True Loves Does Not Wait." I picked that title on purpose, for two reasons:

1- it will draw in those who say, "Oh finally, a Christian who supports premarital sex!" (Which is definitely not the case.

2- to draw in the critics that say, *gasp* "How dare someone attack our doctrine of purity."

At any rate, since watching that video and writing for my own book, I have been increasingly disgusted by how much we are spoon fed our faith. Even the 'core' beliefs of it.

I just read through part of Ezekiel this morning. I don't know that I have ever heard a sermon on anything in Ezekiel except the dry bones. Everyone loves the dry bones story. I am not there yet. Instead, I just finished reading through when God basically calls Israel a whore and says, "You know, you have slept with everyone else, but hello! you are mine! I chose you, remember?" The specific chapters I read this morning showed a foreshadowing of grace and asked the question many ask today, "Is God's way unfair?" to which God replies, "Don't question whether or not my ways are fair. You are the unfair ones." As I read, I thought, "Now why haven't I ever heard of this passage before? Why hasn't this ever been taught??"

How much of our faith is just mashed up and pureed so that it is pallatable? How much of our faith do we actually own? Do we actually know is true?

Yesterday, in church, the entire sermon was on tithe. The pastor never once brought up a Scriptural support for a tithing mandate. There isn't one for the New Testament church, so preaching it as such is unBiblical. Does that mean we shouldn't give? No. We should. But does God still mandate ten percent? No. At least, not from my personal study.

In Sunday School yesterday, we talked about purity and I listened as one of my co-teachers read a passage from Genesis and somehow twisted it to prove that every person on the face of the planet has someone made specifically to be their mate. She should get a Pulitzer, really. That doesn't have Scriptural basis either. Still, the girls were taking it in. She had used God's word to promise them that some day they would get married. Now, all they had to do was wait. True love doesn't wait.

Is it any wonder our faith is so weak? We pick Scripture to skip, and others to twist. Still others we mash up and flavor until it is barely recognizable. We ingest it and become sick, because it is all wrong. It isn't God's word, it is ours- our spoon fed faith.