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Winning puts an end to faith


He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 
 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you. (Luke 17:6)


         Jesus said that if we had faith like a mustard seed that we mountains will move. So we squeeze our eyes shut, clench our fists, hunch our shoulders - for all the world, it looks like we're getting ready to be beaten - and we dredge up as much emotional energy as we can muster, then we start clapping and say, "I believe! I BELIEVE!" or we click our heels together and say, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home." When we open our eyes, Tinkerbelle is still dead and we're still not in Kansas, Toto.
      Faithfulness is not about us. It's not about our circumstances. It's not about how excited we get. It's about who or what we have faith in. I don't claim to understand much more about what faith is, and I don't claim to have much faith, and yet, here I am. I walked away from my life and I'm looking for the pieces for a new one. It's not working out as I'd like - no one is offering me the sort of reward, or even the new life all tied up with a big purple bow. I'm not doing anything special. There was no great power surge when I left Erie. No miracles. Just day after day of pushing against a bunch of rocks, sanding floors and waxing cars (figuratively speaking). Day after day, from the perspective of the world, I lose the battle. I have a sneaking suspicion that the folks in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11) had days, years, and even lifetimes when they felt the same way. What I'm learning is that faith isn't about winning. Winning puts an end to the need for faithfulness. The battle is over. The job is done. No, faith is about the process that leads to victory - and that victory is sometimes not the one we expected.

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This day in history:
Richard Nixon was born
Thomas Pain published Common Sense


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