Can you imagine what it feels like to know that there are literally thousands of people praying for you? People that have been impacted by your unwaivering faith even in the most difficult of circumstances.
On my journey, one of my main objectives is to grow my faith more deeply so that some day my children will teach their children and so on. I could only hope to leave a legacy like the one Sara Walker has written. Or should I say God has written for her.
I grew up in the church. I have Christian parents, and attended a Christian high school. I faithfully attended bible camp every summer. I have a degree from a Christian college. I have had a few bible classes in my life, needless to say. And I have definitely sat through my fair share of chapel speakers!
But just because you drag your butt to chapel 3 days a week, and make A's on your bible tests (Cards on the table: I made C's. Don't judge me!) does not mean that your faith is deeply rooted. Hate to say it, but those hundreds of repetitions of "Father I Adore You" at Bible Camp didn't earn me a one way ticket to the pearly gates. It has to come from something (someone!) else.
There was a time in my life that I was faithfully frustrated. I knew God was out there, and I knew he loved me, but I found myself in a very dark place with no real directions on how to get out of it and I couldn't imagine that a God who loved me could let me go through this.
Now I know that he was setting the stage for some absolutely amazing things to happen in my life, but at the time all I could see was blackness & loneliness all around me. Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it? I guess my "REAL" faith never really recovered from that period until recently. I would go through the motions but not really think anything of it.
Part of living intentionally to me means that you have to be intentional with your faith. I intentionally get up every morning and do a devo off of an app on my Nook. Then I spend some time reading my Message Bible- right now I'm reading Judges because that is what we are studying in the Ladies Bible Class I attend once a week. Then I spend some time in prayer for our day, for my children and husband, and for things that are just weighing on my heart. Lastly I always do something called a "breath prayer". I think I picked this up in one of those millions of classes I was talking about, but everyday I intentionally breathe in thoughts of patience and out thoughts of peace. It helps set the tone for my entire day! And with two very rowdy boys, Peace and Patience are in short supply around here! It is also the first steps in living for God more faithfully and intentionally. I am still a work in progress!
And hopefully someday when I earn my angel wings, I will get the chance to meet sweet Sara Walker face to face and thank her for the impact that she had on my life, and so very many others like me.
I think the most transformational stage of faith development, for me, was developing a desire to learn. I did relatively well in all my bible classes but at some point sought more and that opened up an entirely new world for me.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to read the bible and interpret what this may have or may not have meant based on my personal experience. It has proven to be an entirely different thing to see what this or that verse means to someone who has studied this intently and possibly been able to unearth what it meant in it's original context. To me, that is a catalyst to an entirely new form of Christianity.
It seems to me we all give lip service to the idea that the Christian life is about this and that, typically something like selfless giving to others which we all fall inevitably short of. I find it somewhat ironic that while on the one hand I aspired to this abstract Christian ethic I did not integrate it with regard to one of the most basic of Christian practices; that is, when I read the bible I usually did so on my own and rarely attempted to incorporate other sources. Therefore, reading the bible was first and foremost about me and my interpretive methods.
This is obviously a very modern phenomenon, Christians of the early church could not have read biblical texts on their own because 1) there may not have been an accepted cannon of scripture yet, 2) they may not have known how to read, 3) texts were typical read in community. For all of the benefits of being able to read things and wrestle with scripture on our own, there may also be some draw backs. If I read a book on physics by myself, that is without mentoring guidance, I may very well come away with some ideas that are quite unorthodox if not flat out wrong. I think this is a position that is generally accepted, hence why we go to schools rather than simply go to a book store and record how many hours we have spent reading a particular text. Yet, it seems to me, we do not hold the same kind of care with biblical texts or theological thought.
I could go on but I don't want to preach about issues that are, primarily if not exclusively, my own and not pertaining to this article! haha... These are just some thoughts I had.
That is an incredible way to look at it. I have never thought about it in that context before, but it makes perfect sense. That is why I like the bible study that I am in right now because there is lots of background information and I take lots of notes!
DeleteI don't know if the majority of my classes didn't go very in depth into the whys and hows, or (and this is the most likely case) I just wasn't paying enough attention to understand it all, but it seems like I am learning so much more now that I am intentionally studying daily. We are supposed to do that anyways right? Imagine that, God knew what was best for us...