Simple Faith

I know I haven't written in a while. I actually thought no one was really interested in what I was saying. But, I recently received some encouragement to continue. So...here goes. Like many of you know, I try to say things as straight as possible in order to minimize confusion. As I have lived longer, however, I have come to realize that getting straight to the point when thinking about or acting out Christian faith and practice is almost impossible. The reason is because acting Christianly and being faithful just isn't easy. PERIOD! This is as straight as it can get. There is no "simple" faith.

I mean, let's be honest. It's hard to put our trust not only in what Scripture says on a continuous basis, but it's also hard when we don't experience the emotional and physical presence of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit on a continuous basis in our contemporary setting. It is so difficult to look beyond our own effort so many times to believe that God is involved in our routines, and our routines are not that easy. We have so many burdensome issues we face. Some of them, I want to mention.

First, we all stress about money in some form or fashion. Second, we face the stress of raising children. Third, we stress over our marriages or our friendships. Fourth, we stress over our jobs. I could go on, but everyone gets the point. We all face legitimate problems. No doubt about it. It is significantly problemmatic when the Church attempts to minimize or simply condemn these problems, preaching and teaching mere Christian ideology as the solution to all these problems. Christians facing problems don't need ideologies. They need working solutions.

This idea of "working solutions" leads me to my point. Working solutions in this context means "faith in action." Many Christians do not experience the physical and emotional presence of the trinitarian God enough. When I speak of such experience, I am not speaking of the Charismatic/Pentacostal kind, although I will not say this experience is not an option. The experience of which I speak is community. Most of us, live in lonely isolation. We continue our routines day after day, week after week, year after year. We live life as if we are alone and even in our contemporary church settings, where community is preached, we still don't get the help we need to live this life glorifying God and feeling able to give Him the victory for overcoming the struggles we face.

God intended that we experience Him through the faith and action of each other, JUST AS MUCH as we do individually. We were never meant to live as isolated individuals or family units. God intended us to rely upon HIM and EACH OTHER so that we don't stuggle in silence over the difficulties of life. I do the same as everyone to which I am speaking. I am no different.

Just as it is not easy to simply believe. It is not easy to rely on others for help. We have been raised in a context of self-reliance that is sinful to the core. Yes, I said SINFUL. Individualism is just as SINFUL as all the other BIG sins of which we think.

We all need to make a new year's resolution that we repent of our individual ways and rely on the community God so graciously gives us so that our faith may be complete and become more of what God intended. Therefore, I encourage us all to use all the community resources at our disposal (electronic and otherwise) to pray for each other, keep in contact with each other, give generously when there is need, and continously be available for each other. Life is too hard to live it alone and we were never meant to do life by ourselves.