Faith anyone??

A flower. How delicate. And the color is spectacular, don't you agree. It didn't always look like that though. When I bought that plant it was small and had green leaves...that's it. But the sign on the plant said it would look pink when it came to flower. Well, I just put my faith in that little sign and believed that someone knew what they were talking about. I'd do what the sign said...you know, water, sunlight, a splash of fertilizer now and then...and VOILA!! Pink flowers. They were some time coming, but they bloomed beautifully..... I just knew they would.

When climbing those stairs up there, one would have to have faith to believe that they led to somewhere in particular or you just might not start the climb. But when one reaches the top, it reveals exactly where you are. One first has to believe that if you climbed those stairs you would get to Waskesiu Drive. The map says so. So away I trudge....

I do think our faith in God is kind of like that. God has put within every person a longing, a desire to seek Him out, to climb those stairs. Something we can't put our finger on. It just exists. Sometimes we don't recognize it. Sometimes it feels like......well, like different kinds of thoughts or wonderings.....But in our human-ness we want to see tangible things in order to prove they exist and since those "thoughts and wonderings" aren't tangible, we simply ignore them as being non-existant.

We fail in our efforts sometimes to recognize faith. We can't see faith or hold it or tell it to do this or that like we do with our hands and feet and eyes and mouth.

The dictionary says that faith is a "strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp. without proof or evidence".

The Bible says that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

I was sure of my hope in those green plants and I was certain they would look just like the picture on the instruction card. I had faith that it would have pink blooms. I didn't see any when I bought it......nothing. But even though I didn't see them, I was certain they would eventually blossom. The only thing I had was what was printed on that little card sticking in the soil. I believed it. I couldn't see the end product but I believed in it.

I'm sure no theologian....in any respect. And I don't know all the ins and outs of the teachings of the Bible. What I do know in my being....way inside me....the part that isn't visible even if you were to cut me open, the part that shows itself in allowing me to seek out something or someone bigger than me, wiser than me, better than me....... that part of me knows there is a God and there will be a place for me with Him, when I die. I can't see it now but I am sure of what I hope for and I am certain of what I don't see.

God's Spirit works in the heart of humankind. No matter what kind of life one has led, whether you went to Sunday School or watched cartoons every Sunday morning, whether your mother was an axe murderer or a Mother Theresa, whether your great-grandfather led a revolution or your grandma chewed tobacco, whether your father abused you or loved you unconditionally, whether we've never opened a Bible in our lives or we read it every day..........all.........all have within them the ability to choose. To choose right or wrong. To choose wearing makeup or none. To choose charity or self-centredness. To choose Jesus or not choose Him.

We also have the ability to choose to believe. In this conversation between Jesus and

Simon Peter, Jesus asks him the question..........."But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven." ~ Matthew 16:15-17

Jesus put the question to Peter plainly. Peter believed Jesus to be the Son of the living God....by God's Spirit offering him the choice to have faith and believe......or not. Peter chose well and Jesus said he would be blessed for his faith.

It's a choice. We can choose to believe......or to not believe.

What say you?