Because of my chat with Leah...
Yesterday Leah and I were talking on the phone. She is just finishing up reading The Purpose Driven Life, so we were talking about that and also Lyn being so close to death and how people let us down and on and on and on. This all led us into a discussion on faith. So today I was reading and came across something written by Fredrick Buechner and thought Leah would like it. It's long, so hold on....
"Faith is better undersood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway. A journey without maps. Paul Tillich said that doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
I have faith that my friend is my friend. It is possible that all his motives are ulterior. It is possible that what he is secretly drawn to is not me, but my wife or my money. But there's something about the way I feel when he's around, about the way he looks me in the eye, about the way we can talk to eachother without pretense and be silent together without embarrassment, that makes me willing to put my life in his hands, as I do each time I call him friend.
I can't prove the friendship of my friend. When I experience it, I don't need to prove it. When I don't experience it, no proof will do. If I tried to put his friendship to the test somehow, the test itself would queer the friendship I was testing. So it is with the Goodness of God.
The five so-called proofs for the existence of God will never prove to unfaith that God exists. They are merely five ways to describing the existence of the God you have faith in already.
Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved. I can porve the law of gravity by dropping a shoe out the window. I can prove the world is round if I'm clever at that sort of thing-that the radio works, that light travels faster than sound. I cannot prove that life is better than death or love is better than hate. I cannot prove the greatness of the great or the beauty of the beautiful. I cannot even prove my own free will; maybe my most heroic act, my truest love, my deepest thought are all just subtler versions of what happens when the doctor taps my knee with the little rubber hammer and my foot jumps.
Faith can't prove a damned thing. Or a blessed thing either.....
Faith is 'the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,' says the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1)."
So I was telling Leah that just because we say we have faith, doesn't mean we don't have doubts and questions. If we walk around with a smile on our face and say everything is just fine because we have faith and we are Christians, we are fooling ourselves. We cannot push those questions and doubts deep down and act as though we are so godly. If we acknowledge that we do not have it all figured out and we never will here on this earth, we can search and seek and somehow draw nearer to God instead of suppressing our questions and feeling so disconnected from Him. It's a journey and I loved it when Buechner said, "Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway." So there ya go Leah, one more little tidbit for you think about!! I love you!!
"Faith is better undersood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway. A journey without maps. Paul Tillich said that doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
I have faith that my friend is my friend. It is possible that all his motives are ulterior. It is possible that what he is secretly drawn to is not me, but my wife or my money. But there's something about the way I feel when he's around, about the way he looks me in the eye, about the way we can talk to eachother without pretense and be silent together without embarrassment, that makes me willing to put my life in his hands, as I do each time I call him friend.
I can't prove the friendship of my friend. When I experience it, I don't need to prove it. When I don't experience it, no proof will do. If I tried to put his friendship to the test somehow, the test itself would queer the friendship I was testing. So it is with the Goodness of God.
The five so-called proofs for the existence of God will never prove to unfaith that God exists. They are merely five ways to describing the existence of the God you have faith in already.
Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved. I can porve the law of gravity by dropping a shoe out the window. I can prove the world is round if I'm clever at that sort of thing-that the radio works, that light travels faster than sound. I cannot prove that life is better than death or love is better than hate. I cannot prove the greatness of the great or the beauty of the beautiful. I cannot even prove my own free will; maybe my most heroic act, my truest love, my deepest thought are all just subtler versions of what happens when the doctor taps my knee with the little rubber hammer and my foot jumps.
Faith can't prove a damned thing. Or a blessed thing either.....
Faith is 'the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,' says the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1)."
So I was telling Leah that just because we say we have faith, doesn't mean we don't have doubts and questions. If we walk around with a smile on our face and say everything is just fine because we have faith and we are Christians, we are fooling ourselves. We cannot push those questions and doubts deep down and act as though we are so godly. If we acknowledge that we do not have it all figured out and we never will here on this earth, we can search and seek and somehow draw nearer to God instead of suppressing our questions and feeling so disconnected from Him. It's a journey and I loved it when Buechner said, "Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway." So there ya go Leah, one more little tidbit for you think about!! I love you!!
posted by Cassie at 9:57 AM
1 Comments:
:) You are the best! I really liked that especially how it compares the trust that you have in friends. I also loved the thing that you told me yesterday about satan. I was having all these negative thoughts this morning and I just kept thinking its satan ignore it and fight through it. And I did it! :) Thanks for listening, for being so easy to talk to, for your insights and for taking the time to write a blog directed to me. :) Satan may have been trying to bring me down this week, but god out smarted him and brought me you! :) Leah
Post a Comment
<< Home