What Have You Got To Lose.....

Faith isn’t really something that’s easy to have.  I mean think about it…Faith in God: Here is this being that no one can see, that supposedly controls the entire universe and each and every one of our lives.  If you don’t believe in God,  if you don’t believe in Jesus; the Son of God,  if it’s hard for you to have faith in anything but yourself because that’s all you know to be true….I get it, I really do. I mean, it’s hard to have faith in the ‘magic guy in the sky’ who always was.  What? Always was? Seriously, if you try to wrap your head around it, it just can’t be done….I’ve tried. 

Maybe you don’t believe in God, maybe you don’t want to believe in God.  Maybe you once did but something happened in your life that changed your mind; abuse, neglect, a tragic death of a loved one.  You ask, how could this God, who is supposed to love us and take care of us, let this happen?….There must not really be a God.  Because, if there was, then He wouldn’t have let ‘this’ happen to me. 

Well, I’ll tell you what I think…..

God created the universe and all the life within it….including you and I. He created you and I because he wanted companionship.  He chose us to love us and he wants us to love Him too.  The tricky thing about love though…and we all know this to be true…we can’t make someone love us who doesn’t want to.  God is the same way. So, He gave us Free Will. That means we can chose to love Him, honor Him, obey Him, trust in Him, have faith….or not.   The problem with giving us such a ‘gift’ is that it comes with a price.  That price is sin and the consequences of that sin.  We pay for the consequences of not only our own sin but the sin of others.  That’s why when someone says…How could God have let ‘that’ happen? You have to think about all the choices that each person is allowed to make that led up to ‘that’ thing. Then, there is also a horrible, rotten liar named Satan who is hard at work to make sure you don’t choose the right thing. He wants nothing but to see us all rot in Hell with him.  We are up against a lot of crap just because we have Free Will. So why did He give us Free Will? He loves us so much that he doesn’t want to force us to love Him in return because that’s not real love. 

Some think that in order to be a ‘Christian’ you have to act a certain way, or live a certain life.  Sure, in a sense that can be part of it, but it’s simply accepting the ‘paid in full’ status that we were given to take care of all our choices, all our sin. That’s what Jesus did. God knew we’d never be able to pay for it ourselves so He sent His Son to do it for us.  That is love.  And all we have to do is receive it. Do you deserve it?  No….none of us does….but really we do because God says we are worth it. YOU ARE WORTH IT...YES YOU! The whole living right and acting right…that all comes with having a relationship with God.  When you love someone, you want to give them your all, your best.  You want to follow the rules and you may even make sacrifices …just because they are worth it to you.  But God doesn’t expect you to change overnight and he surely doesn’t require perfection.  He will even love you if you never change.  He just wants you to love Him and trust Him…have faith in Him. Also, when you remember that sin has consequences and you don’t want what you did to hurt those around you and ultimately yourself….you start thinking about it differently. 

What is faith:

The bible defines faith:

 Hebrews 11:1- “ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

 The Merriam- Webster dictionary defines faith:   

Full Definition of FAITH

• 1 a :  allegiance to duty or a person :  loyalty 
  • b  (1) :  fidelity to one's promises  (2) :  sincerity of intentions
• 2 a  (1) :  belief and trust in and loyalty to God  (2) :  belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion 
  • b  (1) :  firm belief in something for which there is no proof  (2) :  complete trust
• 3:  something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially :  a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

There is faith in God, the belief that He IS.  There is faith in God, the belief that He WILL. There is faith in God that He DOES. There is faith in God that He CAN.  If you have any faith in God, maybe you believe all of these or maybe just one or two.  For myself….faith is best defined – complete trust…in all things God.

When I was pregnant with our daughter Aubrey….not knowing whether she would live or die, I chose to have complete trust in God for whatever His will was for her.  I have complete trust that He knows what’s best.  This wasn’t because I just ‘have a strong faith’….it’s because with every event in my life, when I chose to worry, or try to figure it out on my own, I never had peace.  Over and over, I tried to do it on my own.  When we found out about Aubrey, since all my attempts at doing things on my own had failed, I decided to give her to God.  After all it was out of my control.  Or was it? I suppose I could have terminated the pregnancy; it was offered.  We chose life because she was our child and we already loved her.  Our belief in God’s way is that He is the giver of life…we are not the takers of life. More than that….how would we have ever known what God’s plan was if we chose for ourselves.  The doctors could have been wrong. She could have lived. But if we had ended her life… we would still question it to this day.  God was and is in control and so I had complete trust in Him for her life.  She didn’t live and I completely trust that it was the best for all of us.  Having that faith…that complete trust has healing power unlike no other.  You think you could never go through something like that…..I tell you …you can! With God all things are possible!

I have heard people say that they are losing their faith.  Is it that they are losing their faith in God or their faith that He is in control?  If they once have had faith, then they must know what faith feels like, or maybe they never really had it at all. If you feel like you are losing your faith…or you have no faith in God at all, I urge you to think about this:

I believe in God, I always have.  I really can’t explain how or why, but I was told there was a God and I believed it.  Some would think that was naive or gullible; to just believe something you are told.  Ok, so maybe I am.  What do I have to lose?  Let’s put it this way…if there is a wrong way and a right way….I’d rather be wrong about the wrong thing than wrong about the right thing. Basically, if there is no God but I put my faith and trust in Him and I am wrong, what have I lost? If there actually is a God…and all this ‘magic guy in the sky’ fluff is actually true and I chose not to believe it….then I have lost everything!