Category: Faith

Ramblings on Faith and Unbelief

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Some musings from a few years ago remain top of mind.

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Bart Eherman Quotation

I became a believer, and then a follower, of Jesus Christ in college. It wasn’t just academic for me, though the beginning of my life as a believer and follower of Jesus began in an academic environment and was shaped and influenced by academics. I think that’s why I like the academic pursuit of faith even now, over 30 years later.

It’s important for me to be mindful that faith is not purely an intellectual affair. I think I may differ from many people in that respect, but I need to constantly be reminded of it. Faith is a relationship with the Living God; faith is a life and heart commitment; faith triggers action and change or it isn’t real faith.

I know that the words intellectual and faith probably don’t fit together in the minds of some people. Some people see those terms as opposites. They aren’t, but they…

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The Significance of God in Our Insignificance

The Milky Way, is comparatively a speck of dust among the hundred billion galaxies!

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“O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!”

(Psalm 8:1)(NASB)

If the distance between the earth and the sun (93,000,000) was just the thickness of a piece of paper, then the distance between the earth and the next nearest star would be a stack of papers seventy feet (70’) high; and the distance of the earth and the next nearest galaxy would be a stack of papers 310 miles high; and our galaxy, the Milky Way, is comparatively a speck of dust among the hundred billion galaxies! (That we can see)

I don’t know, personally, if these comparative figures are accurate. I am quoting Tim Keller, who was quoting someone else. I do know that the universe is mind-boggling in its immensity and complexity. As much as we have learned about the vastness of the universe and the macro and micro complexities of the world it demonstrates, we uncover more questions than answers as our knowledge grows.

When the Psalmist penned the words above, he didn’t know the half of it, but what he did know (and did not know) inspired in him the awe of God. He wasn’t much different from us in that respect, though we are tempted to treat our vastly superior knowledge from the Psalmist (as minimal as it it still is) as something that warrants discounting the knowledge of God.

Yet what is our knowledge that we raise more questions with every answer?

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The Humble Heroism of Everyday Faithfulness

Humble heroes are the unsung examples of quiet faithfulness to God’s purpose

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In the July/August issue of Christianity Today, the new President and CEO of the magazine, Timothy Dalrymple, talks of the “humble heroism of everyday faithfulness” in his From the President page. In a world of constant attractions and distractions, this simple word is timely. It’s always timely.

I am reminded of the book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction Discipleship in an Instant Society, by Eugene H. Peterson. This book that came to my attention about 38 years ago when I was in college. A fellow Intervarsity member had just purchased the book to read. Her quiet, unassuming involvement in our group carried the weight and strength of authenticity, and the title of her purchase convicted me.

I felt impressed that I should read it.  I had already become aware of my tendency to be controlled by those attractions and distractions that clamor for attention by reading the title of another book that caught my attention: Tyranny of the Urgent, by Charles Hummel, another Intervarsity connection.

These memories are clear to me. I was in my senior year of college, wondering expectantly what the future lay in store. I was busy with involvement in Intervarsity, finishing up an English Literature major and other commitments, complaining (maybe more like boasting) about being busy, desiring to follow and to be used by God.

God was talking to me in those days. I took notice. I had half an intention to read one or both books. I thought it might be a good idea. I felt like maybe God was saying something to me, but I probably won’t ever know exactly what God would have said to me if I had read them.

If I am being honest, I might have let my heart convince me there was no time for standing still, taking what seemed like a long way around to read books about simplifying my life and just humbly being faithful.

My desk at the office is cluttered with papers, magazines, notes, tokens of meaning and dozens of things that will catch not much more than my attention. My bedroom is cluttered with books and magazines I have read, books I have started reading, books I bought with the intention of reading – including books, no doubt, that never will read. Things have accumulated everywhere they lay waiting for some conviction of devoted simplicity to take hold on me.

I am still driven by the tyranny of the urgent, and a long obedience in the same direction is more the measurement of God’s faithfulness to me than any intention I have carried out in my own desire. I doubt I am unique in this, but that is not a great consolation.

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