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What is Faith? III ...

Monday, March 27, 2017. Do we have trust that God hears us? When we are honest, we find a lot of doubt in our hearts. Is God there? Perhaps we are relatively convinced that there is a God. But what do we know, what can we expect. Even those who know the bible and who have learned a lot about faith have their questions and their doubt!

Jesus about Faith …

Jesus tells a story about faith and about prayer. He talks about someone who keeps coming to someone else to reach a goal. He puts it as a template for us and God:

1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (from Luke 18)

The story is quite motivating: keep asking! Keep praying! Go and ask God again, and again.

Questions …

However: I am worried about our faith. Jesus here is worried about faith. Will the Son of Man find faith, when he comes? To me it asks the question, how genuine my faith is, how clear and pure it is! It is not so much a question of how much I pretend to have a lot of faith, or how much I do for faith. It is a question reaching deeper! So many people have done a lot of work and say it is faith work. Yet, at least a part of it seems more work for their own, less a work born from the spirit of God.

Think about it from the following viewpoint: God is full of truth and love. He has existence in himself, eternity. There is life in him, creativity, appreciation, love! How much does my life take from this. Is it completely rooted in him? Or do I base my life on many other things rather than on the creator and source of creation? I do not mean that I need food and shelter and other things, of course. I do not mean that I need people and work, of course. But what is driving all this? What is holding it?

I think that Jesus knew how weak our faith is - even the faith of the faithful. That created worry in him, and we should share his worry, to dig deeper into faith and to be filled by his spirit for our daily life. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts