You're Making It Too Difficult

I am very familiar with the power and allure of putting things off. The fear of effort, change, and failure is a terrible obstacle to any kind of breakthrough in life. After all, it feels like a legitimate reason not to do anything at all! This way you can sit the conflict out, without making the huge emotional investment only to be told you did it wrong. Something good might still come out of it for you without all the strain.

While it is true that living itself requires a great deal of effort, and that is where we learn our avoidance techniques, there is always ONE thing that requires little contribution from us. Our salvation, what makes the difference between eternal joy and eternal anguish, is simply our belief in Him. He told us to trust Him. He is the One who did the difficult part and made the all out sacrifice to invest in us.

Give up the control. Give it to Him. Don't wait until you're doing better. If you wait till then (and if it happens) then you will assume that you don't need Him. Don't pretend that He can be bought off with ritual or sacrifice on your part. All of our labor is but tawdry ugliness and will not satisfy Him. He has told us that His own hard work on our behalf is sufficient. Can our own efforts accomplish more than His? You see, whether we put Him off because we think we're not good enough, or because we think we can do enough to qualify to be good enough, either way we are making it too difficult. Salvation is a free gift for the accepting, and He is not willing that any should perish. May His will be done.

In the Face of the Evidence

Richard Dawkins made a statement. He said that faith is when someone believes into the face of the evidence. Some of you may know that Mr. Dawkins is a militant atheist, and this is his "polite" way of saying that the simple minded are rebelling against the party line. I am sure that Mr. Dawkins will be vastly disappointed not to mention humiliated, when he is brought to account for this very denial of reality that he accuses others of.

The reasons for faith are varied, depending on the person having the belief, but belief, by it's very nature, is based on reason, not in spite of it. There are just some people whom God creates more reasonable than others. These are diligent to investigate the path the facts follow, instead of just following fantasy and inclination. Then there are the others who want what they want no matter who or what logic must pay the price. The second group constructs an elaborate hierarchy of smoke and mirrors to conceal the truth from themselves and by extension, from others. There are the "scientific" theories carefully compiled to provide alternative explanations for the revealed arm of the Lord. Never mind that they really make no sense in the light of the evidence. Then there are the "experts", "scholars" meticulously schooled to speak and teach these theories, regardless of what they might actually think of them. There is the withering scorn reserved for anyone who steps out of line, a contemptuous superiority directed towards anything godly. So much hatred can only come from one source, the fear and terror which must be repressed at all costs. Denying the truth is supposed to make it go away.

I submit to you, that this faith that God requires from us is the only reasonable response to Him after all that He has shown us and done for us. It is the demand for the obedience of belief, from a sovereign Creator. If we cannot give Him this modicum of trust, then we are useless to Him in accomplishing His good purposes.