Trapeze

Ortberg in Faith and Doubt used the image of a trapeze artists to describe faith. Think about a person swinging on a trapeze. There comes a point when he has to let go. In order for the act to work, he has to let go. Once he does, he is in free fall, flying, but totally out of control. He can't control the catcher. He can't control his speed or his final destination if the catcher should fail. It all rests in the hands to the catcher, who is usually not in the spotlight -- not the "star."

The flyer has to rely on the catch to catch him. In the same way, we have to let go. We have to let go of all of those things to which we hang on and let go, trusting in God to catch us. We have to give up control and fly.

Ortberg says that the word for trapeze comes from the ancient Greek word trapeza, which means table. It is only used in the New Testament when Jesus gathers his disciples around what we will call the communion table. He tells them that they have to let go, and fly, in order to follow him.

Image: The picture above was taken this morning as I got in the van to go to work. I was thinking about yesterday's post, and how I need to take time for pictures, when that one jumped out of the tree and onto my camera.

We shape God

In Ortberg's Faith and Doubt he talks about how we view God.

Our experiences, our worries and doubts, our guilt, our mood -- all of them influence how we look at other people. We project all of these things onto the people standing in front of us. How we relate to people is effected by all of the things.

In the same way, says Ortberg, "we project our own falleness on God." I think that we reduce God to our own level. We can't provide grace to people, so we can't imagine that God would. We can't love unconditionally, so we can't imagine that God does. We seek revenge, so we give God that characteristic.

When something goes wrong in our lives, we blame God, because if he is all powerful, then surely he would cooose to use that power in a way that we would -- a way that is affected by our own sin (which would not shape God's use of his power).

When we should be following God, shaping our lives in response to the way that he would want us to live, we are instead shaping our perception of God by the way we live our lives.

It's backwards.

Image: Sunrise a couple of days ago.

Believe it or not

There is a scene in the movie The Replacements when the football players are discussing the game that they just lost. The coach, Gene Hackman, asks them what they fear. There are various funny answers -- bees, spiders -- and then Keanu Reeves gets to the heart of the matter. He fears quicksand. He fears the point at which the game seems to reach a point when they are in quicksand -- loosing, with no hope of recovery. Bad things start to happen, and the players become convinced that nothing can be turned around.

In his Faith and Doubt book, Ortberg says that the critical value in healing is "whether the healer has faith that healing will happen." I was surprised by that. I would have thought that the critical factor is whether the patient believes that healing will occur. Not the case, says Ortberg.

But then, as I think about it, in a church situation, I think it might be important whether the leaders -- the pastors and the leading laity -- believe that growth is possible. Do you think that a church can reach a point when -- even though everyone is working hard to jump start a church to growth -- if those leading do not believe that the efforts will be successful that they have reached quicksand. Quicksand -- that point at which failure feels inevitable.

Do we have enough faith in God to believe that the work we are doing will be successful because of the involvement of God

Evolution

Ortberg, in his book Faith and Doubt tells a story about a group of scientists and God. The scientists decide that they know everything and that they don't need God anymore. They select one from among them to go tell God their conclusions. "God, we can make it on our own. We know everything about life that we need to know. We can duplicate it; we can clone it."

God challenges them to a man-making contest. "Fine," they say.

He tells them that they will do it just like he did in the beginning.

The scientist says, "Sure, no problem." He reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt.

"No," says God. "Get your own dirt."

I think that's one of the reasons that I can believe in God and in evolution. Evolution is not creation. Evolution is change -- it is adaptation. It doesn't start with nothing and create something. Evolution just changes what already is.

Why are there those who do not accept that God has a physical means by which he has shaped the physical world?

Actions and Faith

• The church is serving dinner to homeless people on Christmas Eve. You know that you should go and help, but you don't want to.
• Morning worship is at 10am, but it's Sunday, and you really want to sleep late.
• The person in front of you in line is taking forever at the grocery store. You would like to tell her to stop asking the clerk about the freshness of the broccoli, and just move along.

What is your response? Do you do what you believe to be "right" even is you don't feel like it? Is there value in doing "good" when you don't want to, and are only doing it out of guilt or obligation? Do you wish sometimes that you felt more spiritual and faithful so that when you are confronted with these kinds of situation, you are motivated by joy instead of guilt

I was reading Ortberg's Faith and Doubt. He explained that as the disciples followed Jesus, they found that when they did what Jesus did that his teachings actually made sense.

As I read that passage, I wrote in the book, "Will our actions help to increase our faith? Can faith be made more alive through actions?"

I think that perhaps it can.

Obligation vs Grace

In the book Faith and Doubt, John Ortberg talks about a poem by Robert Frost. A husband and wife are arguing about whether to take in a homeless man. The husband says that "home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in." The wife disagrees and says, "I would say, rather, home is what you don't have to deserve."

Everyone has probably heard the first quote, by the husband. It is often said as a phrase to offer comfort to people. It says to people that you will always have a home, even if no one wants to provide it for you.

Why do we never quote the second phrase? Why don't we talk about grace? I wonder if we don't take comfort in that second phrase because we don't really believe in grace. We don't really believe that we have a home, but we don't deserve it -- we don't find security in grace.

Isn't that amazing? Isn't it odd that we will say on one hand that God never breaks his promises, and say that we believe that, and yet we won't trust grace. We don't believe that God will love us even when we don't earn it.

We'll believe that someone will provide us a home out of obligation, but not out of grace.

Image: Our tree last year.

Convictions

I'm reading a book by John Orberg called Faith and Doubt. In one chapter, he is talking about faith. He says that there are three kinds of faith (he credits these to Michael Novak, a philosopher):

1. Public convictions -- these are the beliefs that we want other people to think that we have, even if we don't truly believe them. Sometimes they may not be true, but they sound true.
2. Private convictions -- these are the beliefs that I that I believe. Sometimes they are things that we want to believe.
3. Core Convictions -- these are the beliefs that shape our actions.

We cannot act contrary to our core convictions. Our actions are always congruent with our core convictions. In this way we can explore our core convictions by examining our actions.
The Epistle of James tells us that faith without works is dead. Think about faith when described as core convictions. If we cannot act in a manner contrary to our core convictions, then our actions will be evidence of our faith. If we believe that God is always with us, and yet we act as if he is not, then do we truly believe that God is with us -- is it one of our core convictions?

This idea illuminated the James passage for me in way it hadn't been before.

What matters to your? If you check our chestbook and our calendar, then we will come to understand what we really believe. ki