Faith

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I had an MRI scan last week. Having been having health problems since last June and the doctors still can't figure out what's wrong with me after countless tests, they decided to take photos of my brain instead. Sort of exciting (almost like caving except you can't move at all), but sort of scary in a way because I didn't know what to expect. I had some fun with the nurse who proceeded to put one of those IV thingys in my arm but popped the vein instead. She then moved onto the second vein which was equally as painful, attached the IV thing to a long tube and put two syringes at the end of it. Then they counted down and squirted the contrast dye at high speed into my vein causing copious amounts of blood to leak out of the IV. Gross! Lucky for me, I couldn't see any of this; could only feel my blood dripping everywhere (I hope there's no squeamish people in Renewal Youth reading this). My arm still hurts!
Which brings me to a word that I still haven't quite grasped the full meaning of.

FAITH

Did you ever wonder if you weren't healed from something or it took a long time, that meant you didn't have enough faith? Or if it was because you didn't pray enough? Or had sin in your life that hadn't been dealt with? If God has the power to heal then why doesn't He? I have been wrestling with these thoughts for awhile now and wondering how on earth people who are diagnosed with cancer and don't ever get healed, cope. How do they stay happy? How do they explain to non-believers why their loving Heavenly Father hasn't made them whole? I was talking with a good friend about this subject recently. She's been through a lot herself so I knew I'd find some wisdom in what she had to say. Sometimes I believe God cares more about our character then about our comfort and well-being. So I've come to think of it a little something like this:

Faith is implicit trust in a sovereign God who knows exactly what He is doing and is in total control. Faith doesn't just fall from the sky conveniently whenever you need it. It involves the heart, as well as the choices you make. Here's a question that really challenged me... Will you still serve God while you're sick? Will you still pursue what He has called you to do? Or will you believe the lie that there must be something wrong with you for this to have happened and therefore God must be punishing you.

A guy who definitely knows what it's like to trust God has this blogsite that I quite often visit. You can check it out here.

On Valentine's Day...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Seeing it's coming up to Valentine's Day real soon and I haven't put up a post in awhile, I thought now was a great chance...

I was talking yesterday to a certain someone about all the reasons why I'm not a fan of it and why apart from giving one of my female friends a card every year, I have never celebrated it. Call me a cynic or whatever you like, but for me personally, the thought of having to give somebody a gift on a specific day just because everybody else is doing it, doesn't really appeal. I like spontaneity and gifts that are given just because. I was once given flowers a few years back, to apologise for something. It just put me off. I think I was more upset at them for giving me flowers to make up for it then I was over whatever they had done! Maybe I'm just weird, but hay, everybody's entitled to their opinion.

Business's love Valentine's Day because not only is it a huge marketing success, it gives them a chance to have a sale and promote their goods. In this aspect I like it, because working for a business myself, I will be exploiting it for all its worth! But for the people who fall for the advertising ploys every year, I have no sympathy at all. Prices go up (especially for things such as red roses), it's hard to get dinner reservations, and then you get some people (not all I might add) who see it as an excuse to be slack all year. This isn't a sexist comment, it's just something that I've noticed throughout my working years by colleagues.

It got me thinking though, what if we were to treat God the same way some people treat their partners on Valentine's Day? How would it make Him feel? It wouldn't be much of a relationship would it? Just paying Him attention and showering Him with gifts on one day of the year. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered, maybe it IS how some of us view God and church. We come in on a Sunday once or maybe twice a week, give Him our half hour or so of lip service, think we've somehow paid our dues and then carry on the rest of the week hardly thinking about Him. Not all of us are like this obviously, but how many times do we fall into that trap?


The ultimate advertising guru, the devil spins us this lie that as long as we keep up appearances and just give God a little bit of our time when everyone else is doing it, that we're ok. Never mind, that without constant work, a relationship will fall to pieces. Without spontaneity and showing appreciation for each other on a regular basis, the partnership will soon become dry & boring. Without consistent communication that is extensive and thorough, hurts & grudges can accumulate, leaving it wide open for satan to come in and mess things up. Maybe I'm looking too far into things, but I was in a deep-thinking mood and this is what came out of it :)


So this year I won't be celebrating Valentine's Day, but I will be trying to make more time to spend with my Saviour and all the other important people in my life. Not for the sake of a day, but because they mean a lot to me and I don't want the relationships in my life to go stale and dry