Some people seem to equate faith with faithfulness. It is good to be faithful like faithfully attending church, faithfully teaching at Sunday School, or faithfully engaging in some activity. Isn't there a tendency to just 'keep on doing the same old thing, going the same old way' even if we forgotten why we do certain things, or take a certain direction. Faith is a living thing, or living progression. We want our faith in God to grow stronger and deeper in day.
W L Watkinson puts it this way, "Faith means vision - the constant sense of things unseen and eternal. Faith means trust - daily confidence in the faithful Creator, the loving Redeemer. Faith means expectation - the anticipation of the recompense of the reward. Faith is the root, hope is the blossom, charity is the flower of true religion. Let me beware of the technical, the tangible, the formal in my religious life; let me keep intact the ethereal cords which bind me to the upper universe, and which bring into my life the spiritual electricity on which everything depends."
That's why we need the discipline of setting aside time for prayer and meditation on God's word. In this pressurised society when we are so pressed for time (retirees feel it too) it is so easy to lose out. We can keep on doing the same things over and over again, but our faith remains static. We need a living faith which grows stronger and deeper.
My prayer is found in the song by Cornelie Booth. The chorus says,
O for a deeper, O for a greater.
O for a perfect trust in the Lord!
A deeper, stronger faith in God Almighty.
No comments:
Post a Comment