Friday, December 7, 2007

Friday August 10, 2007

It's August in Texas. People are saying silly things like "is it hot enough for ya?" It's too hot! I'm heading north. Way north - Boston. A place where they don't have air conditioning in every place. I've never lived anywhere but Texas - I'm nervous!
But what is more exciting than that is the new semester on the horizon. New classes, new professors, new topics to study. New people to meet, new adventures all around. I'm not sure where all this will lead. The future isn't so planned out and certain as it has been for the past ten years or so.
The Hebrews reading for Sunday says "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" and I'm on a new journey without seeing things clearly. This faith journey is unsettling, for others more than for me, but unsettling all the same. How do you explain to people that although my words can't convey it, I know I'm going where God is calling? That answer doesn't seem to be satisfactory in our information overloaded world.
Merriam Webster defines "faith" as belief and trust. I think those are two different things. I can believe in something or someone and still not trust it. Faith is more like trust I think. Faith is trusting God with my whole life. Trusting God with those persons and dreams most dear to me. Trusting God that God will indeed be faithful and loving and not leave us to the worst of our capabilities, but use us for the glory of Christ.
Faith isn't always easy. It's not that hard to believe in a God that you can see working in someone else's life. What's hard is having faith that God can work in your own life, in your own heart, and use you.
When Celia was about two years old, she and I were having lunch and she said out of the blue that God loved me. "Know why?" she said... "because he's using you." Out of the mouths of babes - a sign of faith and hope that has kept me going, kept me relying on God, kept me holding onto faith.
Faith will be the road to Boston, the blank notebook paper in class, the new books in the library. Faith leads me on where God wants to use me. What a blessing!

No comments: