Thursday, January 28, 2010

A Simpler Kind of Faith

There were some very interesting lessons of faith in todays readings from Joshua 1-3 & Luke 9:1-17. In Joshua, we meet the prostitute Rahab, who risks her own life to save some Israelite spies. Why does she do this? Because, despite her sinful past, she truly believed that “the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2: 11b NIV). This foreign woman believed that the Isrealite God was the one true God. And so she risked her life for some strangers. Her reward? Matthew 1:5 lists this prostitute in the genealogy of Jesus. What an honor! The lesson? It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you’ve done, all God asks is that we believe. Rahab believed she would be saved if she put the scarlet rope out her window, we’ll found out the results of her faith in future readings.
In Luke 9 we see another story of faith. Jesus commissions his disciples to heal the sick and drive out the demons. And so they go and do just that. They believed in the seemingly impossible, and so God gave them the power to do so. What’s interesting about the disciple’s story is that, after coming back to Jesus and telling him about all the people they’ve just helped cure, their faith quickly falters. They look around at the hungry crowds and don’t see any way to feed them. They don’t have enough faith to multiply the loaves and the bread (Luke 9:15). After performing such miraculous wonders, they quickly fall short in the faith department.
Isn’t that so true of us as Christians? We’ll be doing so well, and then all of a sudden we’ll start to doubt. We’ll look at our own inabilities and wonder how it could ever happen. The problem is that we’ve once again turned inward, instead of focusing on our God who can and will do the impossible.
I think sometimes we need a simpler faith like that of Rahab, one that doesn’t over-complicate things, but instead just believes. Believes that God is God and that he will provide in any and every situation.
What do you think? Do you need to have faith in any area of your life today?

1 comment:

  1. "We’ll be doing so well, and then all of a sudden we’ll start to doubt. We’ll look at our own inabilities and wonder how it could ever happen."

    How very, very true for me. My fleshly, natural tendency is to lean on my own understanding. And I struggle, oh! so deeply, to cling to what little faith I have, and ask God to do what he wills with what little I have to offer...

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