Faith is not denial

I was just practicing this song for choir tomorrow. It just highlighted something. I usually only show one side of myself on this page, but there are two.

The song was called: "God is good." Its words are simple. God is good. He's always good. He's never anything less. God is good. He's always good, that's why I know I am blessed. So great, so great is His goodness. So good, His excellent ways. I'm so glad for His lovingkindness, so glad to give Him all my praise." Then it repeats the chorus over again. "There's peace beyond understanding. There's love flooding my soul. There is joy, joy everlasting, the half has never yet been told." After another chorus, it elaborates on the theme. Oh, God is good. He's good all the time. God is good. He's such a friend of mine." And then winds things up.

I am of such a divided mind. As I'm singin' this song, I really believe it. It's simple, some would say simplistic, faith at its best. Faith is not denial. It never refuses to see the evidence against God. Too often we Christians stand spluttering and get all defensive in the face of evidence that our God is not who we claim He is. One of the first verses that I remember memorizing holds the key to my faith: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isa. 55:8 For a person to look at the evidence available to us and think to prove or disprove God is to put the God of the universe on trial in our court. We have evidence throughout history of the things that we have misunderstood over the years. Doesn't the word "atom" mean the smallest particle that a thing can be divided into. Well, that's not true. Aren't we even looking inside the protons, neutrons and electrons that form atoms now? And we would think to judge God? Yeah, right!

Isaiah 55 continues: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." There is so much information on the web. There are so many words that people say. There are so many books, good books even. How many of the words that you hear can you really be sure will have a good effect on your life? Only the words of the Bible. As soon as I memorized these verses from Isaiah 55:8-11, I started writin' out verses on just hundreds of little notecards. My pastor couldn't figure out what I was doin' and I couldn't really tell Him. I didn't know why I was doin' what I was doin'. I just had this feeling that God's word was the key to everything for me. If I could just get the WORD, everything would be alright after all. Somehow God would work my life out, if I just got His WORD.

Remember the Scribes and the Pharisees in the Bible? They had God's Word, but they couldn't see the Word for the letters. They got so wound up in themselves and their fascinating analysis of God's words that they didn't love the Son of God. Well, I've been called a scribe.

I still believe that the Bible is the answer. I just think that I went at it wrong. I'm kind of into quantity, not savoring the quality. I stuffed tons of Scripture into my head, making me responsible for all of it all at once, and just really overloading my circuits. I should have started with one nugget, memorized, meditated, completely digested that morsel, acted on it, then gone on to the next morsel.

The Bible says that I can choose to be a slave of one of two kingdoms. I can choose to be a slave of sin, or a slave of Christ, but slavery is my lot in life no matter what I choose. Slavery to Christ can feel relatively freeing once you learn to live within its confines I'm told. I see people who have grown up as slaves to Christ. They do look free.