faith

My faith is not an easy thing to describe. I can hardly wrap my mind around it at times let alone dress it up in words. It lives in my heart, a place where mere words meet their match and common expressions go to die. My faith is about experiencing something I could never fully understand, being filled with something I cannot completely contain, feeling something I can never actually touch and knowing something that was never intended to be proven.
I have faith in a God who so loved a world that He gave up the only thing that could have been considered a sacrifice on His part. His Son. His only Son. Who He loved. This greatest love, which came from a Father’s heart, was proven in a Son’s sacrifice and has been found in the lives of many since has become my source of strength, my sense of purpose, my truest hope and my eventual resting place.
I have faith in a God that so desired chosen relationship with us that He gave us free will. He could have created puppets and robots that he could control with strings and commands. But he created humans that could chose to accept His love or reject it.
Living out my faith is almost always defined in terms of the word love. Love God. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love your enemies. I shudder when others communicate the faith that I embrace in a tone other than love. Even the truth can and must be spoken in love. Jesus told his followers that their identifying mark would be their love for each other.
My faith invades every aspect of my life because it is much more than a creed, a belief, a statement, a worldview, a perspective or even a way of life. It IS life. My prayer is that Jesus would feel more and more at home in my heart. That my desires would truly reflect His, that my thoughts would be nothing more than echoes of His and that my life would be entirely lost so that His could be found living in me.
My faith is neither exclusive nor narrow minded. What could be less narrow minded than believing there is a hope for all? That there is a peace available to any? That there is a love that knows no gender, racial or ethnic boundaries?
I am forgiven of a debt that I could not pay. I am free of a prison that I could not escape. I am full of a hope, a peace and a joy that the world has no claim to.
I have placed my life in the nail-scarred hands of a man I have never seen with my eyes. I have found my hope in a story that can be best described as a mystery. And I have given my love to a God whose love for me is only rivaled by His love for you.