Faith is an act of will, not emotion
By LeRoy the Tramp
Look at this mess we are in!
Sin is running rampant on a national, international – and personal - scale. There are disasters, diseases, doubts, fears, corruption . . . and confusion.
And it just seems to be spinning faster and faster, doesn’t it?
Sometimes, between coaxing people into laughing at clown shows, old LeRoy doesn’t feel much like laughing. Or smiling, even.
It’s as though I have a finger in a hole in the dike – but there’s a tsunami headed my way.
Then I recall this verse:
“Always give thanks for everything to our God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:20.
Well, I give thanks to God for good things when they happen, if I remember to. Are you like me in that regard?
But recently I had it pointed out to me that the verse says “EVERYTHING.”
Everything? Even BAD stuff?
We should thank God for horrible things that happen?
We should thank God for difficult circumstances we find ourselves in?
That doesn’t sound right, does it?
But that’s what Paul is saying in that verse.
It’s a step toward total faith in God.
It’s not a baby step. It’s a leap across a canyon of separation.
But it is the key to leading a yielded life.
We know that Satan causes evil, but Satan can’t do it without God’s permission.
God has a plan for our lives. He allows evil to happen because it fits His plan.
We don’t understand it. We don’t accept it.
We reconcile. We interpret.
We make ourselves the central clearing house for figuring out what should or should not happen in our world.
By putting ourselves in the center, we’re practicing self-idolatry. We’re replacing God . . . with us.
He doesn’t accept that.
We do not think like God.
We do not have the perspective of knowing everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be, all at the same time. He has that perspective.
Could a one-celled animal out-think Albert Einstein? The gap between God and us is even greater than that.
We’re just here, in a fallen world, saddled with limited perspective.
And yet, He has given us His Word . . .in Scripture.
He sent His Son, Jesus, to open the way back to Him. He gave us a choice to accept Jesus as the way back.
Can we do it our way?
“God says, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’” – 1 Cor. 1:19.
But give thanks for everything?
Have total faith?
It’s an act of will, not emotion.
Our emotions . . . how we feel . . . won’t allow it.
Having the will to have total faith also allows us to experience real joy.
I read an interesting word-picture of how this works. Author Merlin Carothers suggested it in his book, “Power in Praise.” It went something like this:
Imagine a bright light – God – at the top. Below is a dark cloud, so dark and so dense that light and sound cannot penetrate it. Our human senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell, etc. - cannot navigate us through that cloud.
Call the cloud confusion, pain, suffering, circumstances. Call it our fallen world. We’re in that cloud. We’re in that world. How do we get through the cloud, to the Light?
God has a plan. He has extended a system of ladders down into the cloud. The ladders are His Word . . .His Son. The only way to get through the cloud is to climb the ladders.
It’s an act of will.
It’s faith.
It is acknowledging that we are limited and are powerless to make it through without Him.
It’s not easy. Growing in our Christian faith is an on-going process. The closer we get to emerging from the cloud, the harder Satan will try to pull us back in.
But, old LeRoy is smiling again.
There IS a way. And that is something to thank God for!
LeRoy the Tramp is Keith Brake of Montezuma.
LuLu and LeRoy, the Kingdom Klowns of Iowa
www.clownsiniowa.com