October 10, 2007

if we are faithless, he remains faithful--

Do you ever feel like your prayers are hitting the ceiling and crashing back down upon your head? I have. It is by far the worst feeling in the world. There are various reasons for it that I have found; I don't feel worthy of God hearing me OR I'm not sure that God is going to make a difference this time OR I can't stop my mind long enough to get complete prayers out OR... There are lots of reasons why I feel like my prayers are worthless; lots of times when I, like the lady in yesterday's post, can't find that free gift of faith.

Paul gets that. He tells Timothy what Paul knows to be true, even when we lose our faith for while, God remains faithful to us. The prayers that feel like they are crashing back down to earth have made their way to God because, quite honestly, he isn't just above us in the sky. God hears the prayers that hit the ceiling. Hears them as they hit the floor. He hears them as they bounce around in the empty space. He hears them even when they go unsaid. That is how faithful God is.

Finding the free gift can be hard, but I'm not so sure it is even necessary. Maybe just searching for it is enough. Hell, faith the size of mustard seed can move a Mulberry tree; why wouldn't faith the size of a search for faith move us further along that path toward faith (whoo - convoluted)? What I'm trying to say, I think, is that figuring it all out isn't gonna happen. If full intellectual assent is what we are after to affirm our faith, we are never going to have it. If God is always faithful, always make our faith complete, then maybe just opening the door to faith is enough, at least to start.

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