From Faith to Faith

The Black Angel

My Grandma rocks.  She's had, for many years, a little tin or aluminum statue of a black angel.  It was funny looking and, anyway, who ever heard of a black angel? they're always white and shiny and pure.  Therefore, my Grandma who, as has already been mentioned, rocks, made up a story about him which now gets read every Christmas eve.  It now makes all of us cry because it very much captures my Grandmother's sweet, humble, servant's heart.  Enjoy below...

The Black Angel

Once, long ago, when a message went out through all the heavens that the Almighty had a special task for angels, there was much excitement. Everyone washed his robe, shined his halo and fluffed his wings until he sparkled with freshness.

The angel choirs practiced their scales until each note was clear and true. The trumpeters and harpists sounded their beautiful music until the stars vibrated with the ecstasy of it. Such hurrying – such scurrying. The heavens buzzed with wondering what the task would be and each wished that he might be chosen for the most important job.

One angel, newer than all the rest, stood apart from the others. He shined with eagerness and with the newness of his robes and halo. He was still a little clumsy with his wings but “patience, patience”, he told himself, and “practice makes perfect”.

Each angel had taken a small slip of paper from the task board where it had been fastened with a shiny golden tack. The new angel had not yet found his special talent, so he had held back until there was just one little slip left. Several angels looked at the slip and then their shiny white robes and drifted away, looking around sheepishly to see if anyone was watching. “Perhaps this is something that I can do,” thought the new angel, “something small and simple.” He read the note. PREPARE A NEW STAR FOR LAUNCHING. Now, star preparation is a dirty and arduous task. It requires much shining and polishing – much crawling in corners and crevices. “I will try,” he said, “I’m sure this takes more muscle than mind, more perseverance than experience. I will try.”

He found the star to be prepared and worked diligently through the day. When dusk began to fall, the new star sparkled and gleamed but, oh, the new angel. Dust and dirt clung to every inch of his robes and wings – his hands and face were black with grime. The golden bells rang out. At last everyone would know why this night was to be so special. The announcement was made. This would be the most special night in history. The night of the Savior’s birth. The choirs were called for, the trumpeters and harpists assembled, messenger angels given their messages and the star called for. The star! Who had prepared the star? How were the angels to know that the star was to guide everyone to the Christ child’s birth? No one had prepared the star. Everyone had ignored the notice because it meant soiling his clean robes and dirtying his hands.

The newest angel stepped forward shyly. “My Lord,” he said softly, “the star is ready. I did the best I could.”

The Almighty spoke. “Because of your devotion to duty, my son, you shall have the singular honor of guiding the star this night.”

The greatest honor was his and he was dirty - his robes and wings soiled and black. The Almighty noticed his hesitation. There is no need to worry about your appearance, for you shall become a special favorite to be thanked each Christmas Eve as long as men remember this Holy Night. An angel to be remembered because the task was not too humble or too difficult for you to do – you shall be called “The Black Angel”

And so it is that each Christmas Eve we set out the black angel to remind us that the simple, humble hobs we do to prepare for the day that we celebrate the coming of the Christ Child can often be the most important.

Let me continue my little story

This blog began as a story and it needs some continuing.  I had previously ended the narrative saying that, after three years, I had finally found the job God had set me out to find but nothing is really that simple.  At that time my supervisor was leaving and I had had no manager for about five months, leaving my R&D group rather leaderless.  I was told my division VP that I was going to be converted from a temp to a full time employee but with no manager or supervisor nothing happened.  It was only the VP's job to make the decision, not actually do anything about it so I was stuck. 

Part of me wanted to say, "nuts to this, I'm going somewhere else", but faith follows God even when circumstances don't make sense.  Stupid circumstances.  After a couple months of this my group finally got a manager, a scientist already with us was promoted, and still nothing happened.  This left me with no recourse but to go explain to my new manager that he was supposed to give me a job, awkward to say the least.

For added fun, Brenda and I were presented with the opportunity to buy a house during all of this uncertainty.  My aunt is selling her town home which is about four mile from where I work, a pretty good deal, and a very nice place to start a family.  We decided it was the right place for us and committed to buying it without having a firm word on my job yet.  The very next day I was told that all things were going forward for me to be hired and, since then, all things have actually, really, finally gone forward for me to be hired. 

Which leads me to what I really wanted to talk about.  The day after I wrote the last post I got called down to a meeting with an HR person about my position.  I knew everything should be fine but my stomach knotted up and I, believe it or not, worried.  Our bodies are funny things, I was not consciously thinking about the meeting, not running through, "what-ifs" in my mind but my body was stressed out.  I don't know how you're supposed to "not worry" when you're stressed out without worrying. 

I think, though, that one of the big parts of faith is that it lets you overcome your worry and stress.  We may not always have the grace to walk completely free of worry and doubt, but we always have the grace to walk in faith even when we're scared.  Faith says don't worry but, if you do, rise up in faith and overcome what worried you.  The next time the circumstance arises you'll have that testimony in your heart and maybe then you will be better able to truly not worry.

And I feel I need to put disclaimers on these posts   My experience is so small, and life is so big and complex that it feels flippant to say these sort of things.  But I've got to believe that however big anyone's problems are, God can give you the grace to conquer them.

Do Not Worry

I was asked a few days ago how a healthy person deals with stress.  This, as opposed to an unhealthy person who tries to beat back stress with bad, self-destructive behavior.   The first question raised is, what is a healthy person?  Seeing as how Jesus is the great physician, a healthy person is one who has been made well by Christ.  Your degree of health may be, to a great deal, measured by the nearness of your walk with Jesus. 

The next definition required is, what is stress?  Stress, as I'm going to be defining it here, is not simply pressure but how you deal with pressure.  Circumstances will impose themselves on your life and there is little you can do to change many of them.   Stress comes when we allow the pressure of circumstances to weigh heavily on our minds and we begin to worry.  And worry, I would say, is one a number of antonyms of faith.  This brings us to lots of scripture.

Matthew 6:
25 ¶  "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26  "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27  "Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29  "and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30  "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31  "Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32  "For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33  "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
34  "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Jesus says we deal with stress by not getting stressed.  I had never really thought of this before, I just assume that stress and worry, doubt and fear are a part of life and we deal with them with the help of the Holy Spirit.  And He will help us when we fall into worry, but the healthy person has faith.  The healthy person "worries" about the kingdom of God and righteousness and lets God give him what he needs to live and helps him out of the messed up circumstances which life throws our way.

This is fairly easy to say having never faced any really large challenges in life, but I believe that the theory holds with the small things which I've been through already as well as the bigger challenges I'll face as an adult.

What of the unsaved person then, the unhealthy, how do they deal with stress?  The cynical part of me says...

Proverbs 31:
6  Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to those who are bitter of heart.
7  Let him drink and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.

What more do they have but to do but try to drink away their misery now before eternity comes and its no longer possible.   I don't know, maybe Dr. Phil has some better answers, but apart from Christ any relief from stress is little more than a band-aide which is no good in the long run.

A Better Faith

I've viewed the experiences of my last few years as tests of faith, as things which built me up in my faith.  I've been thinking about that differently the last week or two.  This faith has been directed at things such as jobs, cars, houses, money....  Those things are necessary for life these days but they ought not be the end of faith.  They ought to be, almost, default things of faith.  Jesus talks about our provision for life as being like the clothing of the flowers and the feeding of the birds.  It, more or less, just happens for them and we're more valuable than many sparrows so we also will be provided for.  But I, and so many other people,  "spend" all of our faith in simply finding provision for this life.  We worry and fret over what Jesus said was the simplest.  We may be rich, we may be poor, but either way we'll be provided for and we ought not spend too much time worrying about it.

Now, obviously, God has been using these things to build me up; to say, "see, My promises are true".   But my faith has been very much earth centered.  I've been focused on simply surviving this life and squeaking myself into the next one.  Faith is about bringing God's glory to this earth.  It all well and good that, by faith, I found a job.  Whoop-dee-doo.  Maybe once I, by faith, see the presence of God touch another person I'll be getting somewhere.  Maybe when I see my little son a grown man, boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord I can say I've accomplished something.   A car is nice, a house is nice, but I need more or my roots will dry up as they're choked out by the cares and worries of this life (like cars and houses)

Your Faith Has Made You Well

After a month I'm not going to finish the series after all.  My next post was going to be a bit snarky and I'm just going to move on.

Mark 5:34
And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

But didn't Jesus made her well?  But Jesus said that it was her faith that did it, how does that work?   Though faith has no virtue in and of itself (except that it is a gift from God) it was the thing that made it happen.  Had this woman had no faith, she would not have been healed.  God will do everything, but you must have faith.

And, once again, we see that her faith had works. 
    Mark 5:28  For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
The Holy Spirit tells her to touch Him, she believes, she obeys, she gets healed.  Her faith made her well, but it was Jesus that made her well, but without her faith she would not have gotten healed so Jesus praises her faith.  Funny.

Lazy? Busy? You Decide

So things got busy, and then I got out of the habit of posting and now its been too long.  This blog was really just a scheme to keep myself in the word in the long run and, it seems to be working as its always sitting there in my bookmarks, reminding me to get back to the study on faith.  And I should be able to get back to it this week.

Time is scarce though as, today I went to an ultrasound appointment with wifey in which we found out that we are, most likely, having a boy.  I am now faced with a choice which has haunted me since I was a young lad, do we name him Dale Curtis Larson IV (the fourth for you public schoolers).  The name has had a good run so far and it would be fun to honor my Dad and Grandpa like that.  But the logistical difficulties with having four people in one family with the same name are large.  What do you actually call him?  My Grandpa goes by Dale, my dad goes by Curt, and I'm Dale, and another Dale or Curt just gets confusing.  The tentative plan would be to call him cuatro.  Actually, he may end up being called that anyway.  Then there are the clerical errors at every government, medical, or other type of office which both of us go to.  As it is, my dad and I already share a good deal of our driving records and our medical charts are almost always mixed up.  We'll see.

And then, tomorrow, I need to get license plates put on my new car.  Well, a year old, but new to me.  Newer than anything I've owned before.  No more leaky, creaky Jeep, I've got a grownup car now.   We're really blessed, its quite nice and, more or less, exactly what I set out to find.  Lots of space, good gas mileage, high reliability ratings, ya know, a grownup car.  See image below.

And if that wasn't enough, we might have the opportunity to buy a house, which is what we'll be looking at after get the plates on the car.  No specifics yet as its early on, but its a good deal and, once again, just what we were looking for. 

Stuff is going really fast, I need faith and, therefore, back to the study.

Part one continued: Clive Staples chimes in

C.S. Lewis has a nice little essay called, "The Efficacy of Prayer" which I remembered after writing the last post.  Its more about how you can tell if prayer really "works" but he then moves into the subject I'm thinking about now.  He answers with a quote from Pascal:

    "God", said Pascal, "instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality."          (Lewis continues)  But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity.  It is not     really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my     other actions should do so.  They have not advised or changed God's mind - that is, His over-all         purpose.  But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including         prayers, of His creatures.

In a universe ruled by an omnipotent God do any of our actions actually accomplish anything or are we just puppets, playing out the irresistible will of God.  As Christians we believe that is not the case, that we have free will and that our actions have meaning and consequences.  Why should prayer not simply be one more action we may take to affect our world?

Prayer only being effective when it is in line with God's will makes more sense in this light.  We know that our actions in life will, more often than not, be futile unless they are founded in God's will.  Prayer, as a way of affecting ourselves and the world around us, is only effective when it is based in God's will.  And, as with other actions outside of God's will, if a prayer outside of His will is granted, beware, it is to your hurt and only His grace will bring you back to safety in faith.

Pet Peeves about asking: Number one in a series

1 John 5:

14  And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15  And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

The concept of asking according to God's will seems silly, if something is of God's will, why do we need to ask?  If we, by our free will, choose to walk in His will, would our needs not come about with or without His asking?  I mean, if its God's will it will come to pass, thats kind of the nature of the will of an omnipotent being.  In my mind, the need to ask seems to imply some deficit on God's end, that He must be informed by us about our needs and wants.  This is obviously not true as the requisite proof text illustrates, "...for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."  Matthew 6:8.  He's omniscient,  of course He knows, so why must we then ask Him for things?

Quick answer, because the Bible tells us to do it that way. 

    James 4:2  Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war,     yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

Easy as that, if we don't ask God for stuff won't get it and we'll end up killing each other to try and get it.  Anything deeper than that I really can't say for sure.

Don't worry though, I'm not going to leave with out a little speculating.  My gut tells me it has something to do with our Father/child relationship with God. 

    Mt 7:11  "If you (earthly parents) then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,         how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

Our earthly parents (in theory) give us everything we need to live and to do their will, but kids still ask for all sorts of other things.  If the thing asked for fits into the parents will, they will happily give it to the child.   God, like our early parents, except perfect, will also happily give us good things for which we ask.  This does nothing for the question of whether our needing to ask for things somehow lessens the potency of God's will, but it makes me feel better somehow.

Another speculation lies in my lasting fixation on faith and works.  If we are to receive good things from God by faith, where is the step by which we exercise the faith which God has given us.  Maybe He tells us to ask Him for things as another way of walking out our faith.   We see a need, God gives us faith that the fulfillment of said need is of His will, we ask Him, He gives it, and our faith is built up by seeing Him work.  Maybe?

Whatever the case, God says ask Him for what you need or, more appropriately, ask Him for the things which fit into His will and you'll get them.  Don't ask and you don't get nuthin'.

   

Asking

"Asking in faith" is a faith topic I've wanted to get into for a while and looking into the book of James reminded me of that. 

James 1:
5  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
7  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8  he is a double–minded man, unstable in all his ways.

People tend to use this verse to say that any time you ask God for something without complete, unwavering confidence, you are a wind tossed wave and ought to expect nothing.  This, though, is foolishness.  We know that God has not promised us anything we want and so, sometimes, we must ask for something which we believe we need with only hope that God will give it.   This is not lack of faith or double-mindedness, simply asking your Father for something you want.  But, I'll try to look more deeply into that type of asking another time.

In this instance, God commands us to be confident.  My proposition throughout this study has been that our faith is not so dependent on our state of mind as our state of mind would have us believe.  In this instance, though, God demands a specific state of mind to accompany our belief.  If we want wisdom we must believe and have no doubt.  No shades of gray here, no "kinda hoping" for wisdom.  No doubt means no doubt. 

I have to assume that this state of mind is not possible apart from the grace of God.  I know I can work up a pretty good sensation of confidence from time to time but that is going to be much different than standing on a promise made by the God who created the universe.  Therefore, if you want wisdom, I guess we need to ask for faith first.  Once you get that you may, essentially, demand wisdom from God.  The nature of wisdom is a whole other study but its vital to our Christian walk which is why God tells us He'll always give it at our request with no questions or condescension. 

Step Back

Aaron makes a good point in his comment on the last post.  Its hard to separate God from His law and I think I'm splitting hairs a litte too closely here.  Or maybe my wording is just bad.  I know this, whatever the motives or our hearts, the law is good and must be followed.  Either you follow the law because God has filled your heart with faith and you then do what the Father does, or you follow the law because you believe that doing good things will make you good.