Friday, April 11, 2008

The God Must Be Crazy

10:01 PM by Christi Bowman

So I have been reading, and thinking about faith today. In the past, when I have heard the verse, in Hebrews 11, "without faith it is impossible to please Him", I thought it only went as far as believing that Jesus died on the cross for me. That is where I thought faith ended. After today, I believe that it goes much farther than that. Believing that Jesus died on the cross for us is just the beginning...and I have been at the beginning of my faith for way to long.

I am beginning to see that faith is also about hearing the voice of God, and doing what He says...even if you think it sounds incredibly ridiculous. Eugene Peterson paints a pretty good picture of Noah's "stupidity" in The Message. Hebrew 11:7 says "By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land.". Did you catch that? Noah built a SHIP...IN THE MIDDLE OF DRY LAND. I don't know about you, but that sounds crazy to me, and it must have looked crazy to the people of Noah's day, and I wonder if Noah, at times, felt pretty stupid. The question I have asked myself is, Do I possess the ability to look stupid for God?

I am in the middle of a discipleship study, created by Seth Barnes, called A Warriors Journal. In it he says

"The logic we have is flawed both by our own sin and the sinful worldview around us, and besides that we are finite and limited creatures! God's thoughts are not our thoughts; His ways are not our own (Is. 55:8-9). "

This is the exact reason why we think that God's ideas are whacked. The other day, I could see that someone I was with was really hurting emotionally. I was in public with that person, and we aren't particularly close. In part because it is really hard to get her to open up. I was talking to some other friends, and she was just sitting there. I tried to draw her out by talking with her, but that wasn't working. She gave me one word answers, and that was it. Finally, I decided it was time for me to go, and I heard God tell me to hug her. I literally had a conversation with God in my head. First, I asked Him if I heard Him right. "You want me to hug her?" He said YES. I said "God, she didn't even want to talk to me." He said "I know". I said "what if she pushes me away, or acts like I have crossed some sort of boundary or something...what if I embarrass her?" He said "do it anyway...I want you to do it" I said "o.k.." I want you guys, my readers, to know...I fought against that hug with everything in me, but I couldn't get away from it...so I did it. It didn't make sense to me, but I did it. And she held on to me for a long time, and at the end she thanked me. I got to be Jesus, to my friend, for just a second, and we were both blessed. I was lucky enough to hear His voice that time, and discern that it was Him, and that hugging her was what He wanted me to do, but I wonder how many times I miss His voice. Seth, writes this of Paul,

"Paul would daily have to let go of the world's way of thinking and seek first the Kingdom by faith. And he'd have to value his own safety and security less than being a disciple of Jesus. In today's passage, we see that meant prison and hardships. He did it because he knew who God was. The Lord's voice was familiar enough to Paul that he could recognize it; from there obedience was nonnegotiable. The Spirit didn't give Paul much to go on, but it was enough to compel him. Not knowing what lay ahead (other than that it was not going to be pleasant), he had to trust God."

So, where I believe I am at in all this is, I desperately love God, and I trust Him completely. I know that when I am able to discern His voice, obeying Him will be nonnegotiable. I must confess though, that I am very new at hearing His voice, and I am not always able to discern it. I think He gives us small things to do, like hugs, to see if we will be faithful...so that He can give us big things like ships on dry land. I don't want to miss out on the hugs. I want to be trusted with the ships. For now I will have to, like Paul, "DAILY let go of the world's way of thinking, and seek first the Kingdom by faith." Hebrews 11:6 (MSG) says

"It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe BOTH that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him."

Will I be able to build a ship in the middle of dry land while everyone stands around and mocks me? I don't know. What I do know is that I must also have faith that He responds to those who seek Him. I will seek Him in this, and trust Him to be faithful...because in Africa, he asks you to build ships.

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