The W's of Faith

Jesus talked about worrying, and how God provides for fauna, and clothes flora, and how we cannot add one minute, one second, not even one iota of breath and breadth to the span of our life here on this earth. Forgive me if it appears that I am taking this out of that context to apply here, although I would argue it is not truly out of context because I see what is portrayed as belief through claiming the promises of God as the Worrying of Faith.

It is a spiritualization of worry. By simply claiming the “promises of God”, we can somehow legitimize our worries by addressing them with a window dressing of faith and belief. “God, I’m not really worrying, because I’m claiming your promise of taking care of the thing that I’m worried about!“

Now, I have many people concerned for my safety and well-being. They “worry” for my safety, and I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t be concerned for others. Here is my problem, if you have to say something to reinforce a “believing attitude” then you don’t really believe. I’ve found that those who believe don’t have to say anything for you to believe that they believe. It is the people that talk you to death about how they believe that are trying to convince you (and most likely themselves) of their belief.

This is the same thing James speaks of in his epistle. There are those who believe and this belief affects what they do and how they act, and there are those who merely speak of believing. Those of the Wordyness of Faith believe that through the repetitive voicing of their hope that a thing is true, that it will be perceived as faith and that God will be moved to accomplish a task on their behalf.

The Wisdom of Faith is that it will have its result apart from any attempt to invoke or stimulate it. Faith either is present or is not present, and nothing we can do will cause it to be one way or the other, nor can we bring about its result internal to ourselves by attempting to portray it externally as belief that something will happen apart from any evidence or even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Posted by: HarryTick™ on 6. July 2007, 23:57 |