Faith and Presumption

Faith looked over her shoulder and saw a figure running up the trail. As she continued her climb, the figure caught up with her.

Greetings," he said, after coming within earshot

Faith returned the greeting, and the two continued on together. At length, Presumption, for that was his name, said, "Can we not go faster? It feels like we'll never get there at this rate."

Faith smiled, explained how long journeys require consistent effort, and warned how easily a person can overrun his or her bearings and become lost. Presumption wasn't satisfied, but he didn't want to leave Faith's company, and he walked quietly for a while.

As night fell, they came to the edge of a cliff. Faith's map indicated the trail to the right led to a bridge that would take them on their way. As they walked along the cliff, they came to a tree that appeared to have fallen across the chasm. Presumption immediately assumed this was the bridge, but Faith pointed out that a large boulder marked the bridge they sought.

"Someone probably moved it," Presumption argued. He was getting tired of Faith's methodical observations. "Besides, doesn't faith mean you are supposed to follow your heart?"

Unable to dissuade Faith, Presumption began working his way along the tree trunk, and Faith soon found the bridge and continued on her way, but she never saw Presumption again.

This post written by Loren Paulsson first appeared in the August 2005 Character First Newsletter. It is posted here with permission from Character First.

Worship

Come to the Beginning of all things;
Creator of all things that are;
The One in whose life you have being;
The Ones in whose Image you're made.

Come to the mount and be shaken;
Climb on a stair you can't reach;
See yourself poor, blind, and naked.
Behold in your goodness your ruin.

Fall on the rock and be broken.
See love in a death on a cross;
Find hope in a tomb that is empty;
Know the Way to a rest you can't merit.

Receive of His life shed for you;
Be remade and partake of His Body;
Share in the Kinship of many;
Get lost in the fields of His keeping.

The Gospel as Story

Last year a friend asked me to summarize the gospel as though I was explaining it to a young child. Here's my attempt. How would you answer that question?

When God created the world, it was good. There weren't any weeds or sickness, and Adam and Eve didn't hurt one another intentionally or unintentionally. Then the serpent beguiled Eve into tasting the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God had instructed them
not to eat, and then Adam ate of the fruit.

They tried to hide from God because they knew they had done wrong. And ever since then, the goodness of creation has been mixed with evil. All people have struggled with sin's affects in the world—death, toil, pain, sorrow. And even our motives have become twisted and turned on themselves so that even when we try to do the right thing, we often do it just to stay out of trouble or to get other people to do what we want, and we end up justifying all kinds of bad things in our minds because they don't look bad to us...until after we do them.

But God had always had a bigger purpose for humans and for the world He had given them to rule. So in His mercy, He chose people throughout history and established a relationship with them. He began to reveal Himself to them and revealed to them how they should behave toward one another and what kind of sacrifices were necessary to cover their sin, but this law only revealed how really sinful they were.

So God in His mercy sent Jesus, His Son, to be born a human, under the law, and to die so that Christ's blood could be the final payment for sin. Then Jesus rose again, proving that He had defeated sin and death. Then a little while later, his disciples saw Him ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of God.

The Holy Spirit works in our hearts and minds, convincing us this story is true and giving us the faith to believe it. Those who do not believe it will go on with their minds and hearts twisted by sin, imagining they are not dependant on God. And in the end they will experience what Adam and Eve only partly experienced—utter separation from everything good and comforting and alive and beautiful.

But the story doesn't end for those who experience the mercy of God, who are grafted into Jesus, the last Adam. They will gradually become untwisted, and even when they die, they look forward to a day when even this world with it's death and toil and pain and sorrow is remade into something even more alive and growing and healed and joyous...and they will live in and enjoy the presence of God forever.

Spring

Oh yes, my friend I do believe its spring;
The finches build a nest in yonder spruce;
Why, just the other day, I heard a robin sing;
The geese in pairs are nibbling tender shoots.

The hills about are clothed in their spring green,
Flowers adding color to the lovely scene;
On moonlit nights, one hears the music of the bog:
The marsh resounds with many singing frogs.

The little doggies run across the sunny green,
And make their master think of what might be;
Here and there a tractor moves ‘cross a field,
As farmers plan and work for summer yields.

On sunny afternoons in mama’s beds,
The daffodils do nod their yellow heads;
Most bucks have shed away their last year’s racks;
Coyotes loose winter coats from off their backs.

And me it never ceases to amaze,
How God made life to ever more renew,
How He puts all mankind’s art to shame,
In just one sunny springtime afternoon.

Love

It has been the favorite topic of bards and idiots throughout history.

We imagine it will make us feel like we've never felt before. It will carry us off to new heights of happiness and unending bliss. We envision the day when Hollywood's magic will strike in our backyards. Even those who say we're committed to "courtship" (whatever that means) dream of falling truly in love, for the first time, with THE ONE, the only, "God’s best."

Then come the not-very-inspirational testimonies of rejection, misdirection, and pain that seem to inevitably haunt human interactions in a fallen world. None hail these stories, but I suggest they tell us more about love than the romantic successes in which we all revel.

You see, love isn't encapsulated in the heat of a first kiss or the never-to-be-felt-again excitement of that first high school or grade school or college crush. I won't say the heart pounding, head-spinning, giddiness has nothing to do with love. Most of us apparently wish for it, and it seems like an important part of the journey toward something more mature, but love is perhaps most evident when it encounters the poor, the ugly, the evil, the misguided, and the unlovely—and redeems them.

You'll see love when you see the patient way your mom cooks another meal. You'll recognize it when your dad wipes your vomit off the bathroom floor without saying a word. Love's what motivates a friend to confront you with your hypocrisy. You'll see love when you look at the cross.

Christmas Eve

I walked along a rain-soaked track
One silent Christmas Eve
Saw clouds aglow with moonlight
Heard the chuckling creek

Beheld a house upon a hill
Outlined all in white
With reds and greens placed here and there
A scene of brilliant light

The stable and the fences too
Were clothed in garlands green
All shown in Christmas brilliance
T’was a lovely, glowing scene

Then I spied the neighbor’s cross
It cast a white reflection
Glistening on the wet tin roof
Like the pathway to redemption

Trust and Duty

In God we trust has been our glorious theme
Through darkest days we have in past believed
Nor must we stray though broken or bereaved
We’ll find no strength in human self-esteem
Our own technology or human scheme
Let right be ever held and truth received
Mercy ever loved and meekness esteemed
God made men free; it is not just a dream

Words scarcely can describe our gratitude
To those brave souls who fight in freedom’s cause
To families here who’ve shown such fortitude
And those keeping them supplied
They faltered not nor shrank from giving all
Now may we likewise each heed duty’s call