When you know something to be true, your actions reflect your belief.
I consider my walk with God and how challenging it is on a day-to-day basis. How challenging it is to practice even in the community of faith that I’m part of. I think people make this journey so much harder; but I also believe they make it hard so that it brings out the truth of what I say I believe. And life brings challenges so that our beliefs are laid bare in front of us and others.
I’m noticing more and more that we often say and proclaim what we believe with our mouth but our hearts are not in it, and our actions don’t reflect it. And our actions don’t reflect what we say we believe for various reasons. I know people pleasing is one, fear is another; there are patterns we’ve adopted from our environments, and systems of thought we’ve internalized that, in short, make us a people who lack integrity and conviction.
I see these gaps in my own life and it has been bothering me for a long while. I know my convictions are strong in some areas, but not all, and I know it’s not how I ought to live. On one hand, I’m grateful for the mercy of God, but on another hand, the matter makes me cringe. I’d say I’m committed to my spiritual life, but even in that I’m not pleased.
"If you believe, why do you doubt?"
Standing up for yourself in the midst of criticism isn’t a walk in the park. I endure certain things because if I give-in I’ll be that person who just bends at the conviction of others, never standing for my own, and I don’t believe that is a Christ-like trait. I often think of Jesus, how, even when he was being whipped, and reviled, betrayed, spat on, jeered at, he didn’t surrender what he came to do on earth. Even the one with whom he was close betrayed him, but it didn’t steer him off course. He knew who he was despite those around him, those supporting him, those seeking to kill him. Even when Pilate stood and said “don’t you know I have power to set you free and power to crucify you?” he wasn’t intimidated, nor did he faulter.
I think when we fear people and their opinions more than we fear God, we give them the status of God over us, forgetting Jesus’ response to Pilate’s words: “You would have no power over me unless it was given to you from above.” It’s not an invitation to be impudent toward authority, but consider who holds the reigns to your life. Whose words will you believe: man’s or the Lord’s?
It’s not an easy thing to do. I remember a time when God asked me to do something, and doing it, the results were not what I expected. And I felt angry, and upset, and low-key a little bitter. But time revealed that I’d made the correct choice. The obedience was painful because I was the villain in that moment, but time vindicated me.
And I’m reminded of that time; and I compare it to who I am now. I wish I could say that it made me bolder, but I think I’ve weakened a bit in my boldness. I second guess, I question God’s voice more and more, because the pressure of life feels more intense now more than ever. The time-frame before vindication comes is gruelling, and the memory of it doesn’t easily flicker away.
But I have to remember that Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He believed in a situation that others, all of us, would have written off. I consider this, and I see the importance of not only being rooted in my faith, but be ready to stand when decisions and actions that I have to take are foolishness to me and to those around me. But to be honest; we are not short of stories of people making decisions that are seemingly radical. People do that all the time for decisions not inspired by the Holy Spirit. I think it’s a matter of our hearts and what we think about God.
What do I really think of Him? The answer to this will determine my actions moving forward, and will determine the days and years ahead of me.
I’m convicted to scrutinize my beliefs and my actions. The psalmist wrote “I have seen slaves on horseback and princes walking on foot like slaves.”
The way things are have stopped making sense to me. Something's gotta change.
