I had an epiphany about Faith today...
As I was out running through the hills of Marin, I had a
light bulb go off. It’s
interesting that many times when I am in motion of some kind, some of my
clearest thoughts emerge and in a moment, those things I might wrestle with
normally produce clarity and new perspective.
In this season of death and rebirth, fall and recovery from
the fall, shedding and letting go, I realize that for most of my life, I have
equated having Faith with the honoring of a belief system by which I was
raised. In many instances, I can
look back and see how the nearness and familiarity of being raised with a
certain worldview and religious tradition, often produced a distance and
numbness towards the whole thing. And becoming increasingly afraid to admit I
had doubt.
It never occurred to me that it would be as a result of a
season of Crushing, and with it, a new permission to ask some really big
questions, would I begin to understand what Faith looks really looks like when it
has become the only thing you have to take your next breath.
It grows when we are willing to die to our need for answers,
our addiction to control, our incessant problem-solving approach to life. Faith
flowers when we come to a place in our experience where we recognize that our
own internal resources are, and will never be, enough to walk us through the
fires of life. Faith asks us to trust things we cannot see and often not
explain. It is counterintuitive on the deepest level.
Faith does not exist as an adjunct to human effort. It is
not a “flow source” that can be tapped into, should our own planning go awry.
Faith is a gift that cannot be manufactured, controlled, or consumed.
It can only be exercised.
Faith does move mountains.
Even the ones inside of us we’d
thought would never move.
No comments:
Post a Comment