What My Faith Means to Me #3

This was written by husband for one of his seminary classes, and I thought it went along well with the earlier posts by our daughters when they were confirmands.

When I think about God I think first of the awesome wonder of a Being who can create all that is from nothingness, simply by willing it into existence. It is so far beyond my understanding that simply trying to establish boundaries for this act of power, to express parameters for such a God is impossbile. My mind can conceive many wonderous, Wonderland-like things, but creation, ex nihilo, is so frar from my understanding of what is possible that I can only accept it on faith.

The author of Hebrews describes faith as …the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (11:1). Hope and evidence, yearning and established fact. It is in this faith, this gift of God that I can come to terms with that which is beyond knowing. The Hidden God reveals Himself to His creatures in ways which we can only dimly comprehend. In this realm of the poorly understood Truth, we are forced to become like children, guided toward places we can only imagine, trusting the choices of the loving Father who leads us.

When I was a child my father would take our family on Sunday afternoon drives in the country. After leaving our neighborhood I would be totally lost, unable to recognize any reference points in the landscape around me. Yet I never worried about the unfamiliar homes, fields and woods that we saw. My trust in my dad’s ability to bring us safely back to our home was absolute.

Just so my faith in the loving heavenly Father is absolute. As my father’s repeated ability to find our home again reinforced my trust in him, so the long record of God’s faithfulness and care for His people reinforces my trust in Him. In Scripture, in the lives of people I have observed, and in my own life, God’s faithfulness is always apparent, always comforting, always objectively true.

To be continued …..

For more about faith see:

What Does It Mean to Walk by Faith?

What My Faith Means to Me #2

What My Faith Means to Me

real sex — Book Review

If you’ve never read a book by Lauren Winner, run out and get one now!  She is not only articulate, her topics are well researched, and she is honest and open about her own struggles with leading a faithful Christian life.  Her first book, a memoir entitled Girl Meets God is the story of how she, a young Jewish woman, converted to Christianity.

Anyway, real sex, seemed an obvious choice for this month’s topic and exploring the theme of eros love.  Subtitled “the naked truth about chastity” the book begins with Winner’s attempt to work through the difficulty she, and other people, even Christians, have in maintaining chastity.  Somewhere along the line she realizes that you cannot discuss chastity without discussing marriage — chastity isn’t a virtue or discipline to practice for the sake of avoiding something bad or harmful — it’s to be practiced in order to understand what marriage and becoming one flesh is meant to be and to represent in the Christian community.

Here’s a quote from the book:

“When I see them (a married couple she knows who have their share of differences) I not only feel optimistic about the possibility of staying married, I also feel optimistic about the possibility of staying a faithful Christian, of not drifting from church when I grow bored or indifferent or angry.  I remember that the Bible tells me over and over that marriage is like the relationship between God and His beloved.  I am cheered.”

According to Winner, marriage is not just for the couple, it is for the community.  They are a sign that:

“He (God) loves us, and is faithful to us, when we cheat on Him.  He loves us and is faithful to us, when we insist our love has died on the vine.  Marriages are made in part, to remind us of God’s relentless fidelity”

I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of my marriage that way before.  Perhaps we would all take marriage more seriously if we did. Our love for one another is an earthly example to others of God’s heavenly love for each of us.

Read the book for more.  You’ll be edified and challenged, and if you’re like me, you’ll want to read other books by this author.