When faith is only an adherence to a set of propositions our once ”living beliefs” will grow cold and perfunctory. We then tend to look for emotional settings to proclaim in an impassioned manner the truths that no longer move our hearts. Some see preaching and teaching this way. Others see witnessing in this manner. Some might call them debates or needless controversies. I see it happen on line all the time. But faith and the walking out of faith are an entirely different thing than telling people what you think about God.
Faith when received and offered as grace and gift will lead us into a childlike posture of the heart. We will begin to naturally follow. Much like children and their innocent trust, our faith will begin to take us into the unknown both within and without. This unknown is less about doctrine and apologetics (as important as these are) and more about “the doing” of the thing. It is about the walking out and walking into the truth and not the articulation of the truth. I do realize the irony of my post here.
The longer we stay inside the “safety of our proclamation” that has ceased to be a living witness, the more our own words haunt our deepest longings and become an impediment to our very relationship with the Father. We become the very Pharisees we loathed in the beginning. At this moment, faith and the Father’s voice are calling us into the unknown. In this place repentance, humility, charity, service, and compassion are all directly related to real people, real places, and actual life as we experience it. Here, nothing is merely an intellectual pursuit or an understanding for the sake of future referencing. This realm of the unknown (life yet encountered and yet fully lived) is our very heart being reconciled to the Father’s heart. We can go to this hinterland of the heart but we will only get there by faith’s guiding gift. There are no maps to this place of faith in the sense our minds alone can discover direction and follow it without the Spirit’s aid and His people waking along side of us. This discovery is less about our personal hard fought battles with understanding and propositions and more about our very presence in this world. Who are we today with others who are also asking these same questions? As we walk by faith we continue to hear our name called out to us, lovingly, beautifully. I can hear it now if I listen as a child. David. David…my beloved..this way…this way. Oh how I am learning to love the sound of the Father speaking my name to my lonely heart.
Our name is found and remembered in this mysterious place of faith. What is unknown to us outside of faith is captured and made holy in the terrain of trust. In that trusting, in that following, we must listen ever so deeply as much of the directives into this unknown realm within us and without us are lead by the Spirit and are not given to offer others as teaching. We don’t get to proclaim the holy and the sacred as something we have attained. No, this is a beckoning, a summoning of love. It is as if the Lord is saying “I love you. Come this way. And keep it a secret.” This does not mean secret in regards to the truth coming out. This is a secret in the sense it is a precious thing held carefully in your heart. Like lovers hold a picture in their memory of each other. It is special, holy and hallowed. When we listen out of love for the sake of love our actual obedience becomes our teaching or wisdom shared. Words can be an encumbrance.
Oh that this day we would walk along side each other, wrapping and unwrapping our wounds, speaking life into one another and then, ever so haltingly arise and begin to move towards the unknown realm of faith where the Kingdom is manifest and we of course can take no credit. In truth, it was our need for certainty and safety that was actually the deterrent to spiritual growth.
I pray today Father you would take my desire for certainty and my grasping and holding onto to truth as a protection and a tool rather than regard it as a Presence, Your Presence.
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