New Blog Site

Hey all -

If you're reading this, you should be at www.raggedfaith.com - my new website designed by my good friend Craig Fairley at imaginecreative.com. Head on over!

A New Standard

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

James 1:27

I have a problem. I look up too much and down too little. I look up to what other people have and attain, but rarely do I look down to what others have lost. I desire to step up to the higher standard of living while ignoring the gift of living more simply. I grow anxious as I think about ways to increase my financial security so I feel like I always have enough but miss the joy found by those who have less.

It is quite easy to be polluted. In our world pollution is a value. We are polluted by greed, security, and opulence. Living within your means (or living below your means), using things till they've lost usefulness, and identifying with the poor on not even on the radar of our world's value system.

But they seem to be the values Jesus shows His disciples.

How then will we live and with what values will our lives be guided by? We have the choice to be mindless as we absorb the polluted value system of the world in which we live, or we can set new standards based on the example of Jesus and the call to love and value all humanity. We can live these values and demonstrate the joy that comes with them.

Who's in?

Few leaps, Many Steps

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

Faith is something we want ... but we really don't want it. Faith requires trust beyond our own abilities and comprehensions. By the very definition of faith we cannot make it happen, for if we could then it would no longer be faith but self reliance.

Therein lies the challenge of faith. We cannot make it happen, for it we do it is no longer faith. Even if what we make happen by our own ability is good it turns out to be too small because it is filled more with the power of self-ingenuity than the power of God. The Christian faith is faith beyond the self. The only time there is faith in self is when we see ourselves as servants of God endued with the power of God to serve the mission of God.

My family and I are learning a lot about faith lately. What I'm learning is that God rarely solves things all at once. It's not as though there are great miracles of faith. Correction - there are great miracles of faith but they are the rare exception. What is more the rule is the small steps we take in faith that lead to miraculous things.

So many times we followers of Jesus look for the miraculous for proof that our faith is real or that God is present. What is even more formative, and need I say normal, are the everyday opportunities in front of us that afford us another opportunity to trust God.

To have love beyond ourselves to love those who hate us.

To trust that God is working when there seemingly is no activity.

To believe that it will all work out ... somehow ... even when logic can't figure out how it all will.

It's all faith. We're stretched so little - or perhaps we allow ourselves to be stretched so little. We miss out on so much when we can do it all on our own. The beauty of what I'm learning is that my call is to walk in the direction God calls and do my best to obey. He'll take care of the rest - the unseen.