"The Habit of Faith"
It's strange not to have a weekly platform as an outlet to speak about what I've studied and lived in regards to faith. So I've been doing all this reading and have no place to talk about it, except in this blog and to friends who likely wish I'd stop reading altogether. Since the Narnia film came out it's been a point of conversation to rediscover the mind of CS Lewis as it pertains to the topic of faith. One of my favorite excerpts from Mere Christianity speaks of that very thing and reads as follows:
"Now faith...is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods "where they get off," you can never be either a sound Christian or a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of faith."
I find it interesting that Lewis uses the phrase "where to get off" for it seems to be contrary to the dignity of his role at Oxford. Yet it demonstrates the level of frustration that anyone can reach when we realize that we are people seemingly at the mercy of moods. Ours as well as others. We would surely do ourselves and the world a lot of good if we would train the habit of faith in such a way that a thing as flippant as a mood would not be able to sway it.

I've been thinking on the subject of growth and human nature lately and I'd like to share some sober observations.
We make progress by a two step cycle of growth. One is comfort and the other is challenge. If you can picture one foot as comfort and the other as challenge, we can easily understand the need for both. One must leave one foot and rest on the other and in a balanced pattern of movement known as a walk we progress in physical movement. In the same way comfort and challenge move us through the process of personal growth. When we're overchallenged we fry and when we're heavy on the comfort we get bored and apathy sets in. This is why studies show that we are happier dreaming about what we would do with a wealthy person's wealth than the wealthy person is actually possessing it. In addition, this cycle of growth is why the almighty dollar has such an intense amount of power in the lives of people. Money represents both comfort and challenge wrapped up in one neat little package. Having the money is the comfort, while getting the money is the challenge. Have you ever wondered why some intensely wealthy people can lose millions in Vegas without any apparent regard for the loss? Subconsciously they have eliminated one of their feet for they can seemingly buy their way out of any challenge. In their insatiable appetite for growth they realize that the only way they can feed the need for challenge is to eliminate some of the comfort so they allow enormous chunks of money to simply drain away. Others who have intense wealth feed the need for challenge differently. They continue to work. Ever wonder why Bill Gates and Michael Dell still show up at work? One can only do nothing for so long. Some people who may be successful, but not exactly wealthy, feed the need for challenge with change. For example, a doctor or lawyer leaves a successful practice only to move to Oregon to open a bike shop because he simply "needs a change." I know some people who can't deal with the concept of change. But if there's anything I've learned it's that the only thing (besides God) that never changes is that everything changes. Those who refuse to deal with the changes are destined to go as mad as a man who would try to stop time.
This is just life but I have come to believe that we grow spiritually the same way. We ask God for comfort when we're facing a challenge and when we're comfortable we ask for more comfort. We typically want challenge but on our terms. God's challenge is far too unpredictable and dangerous to our plans. Since God seems interested in our growth, the challenge and changes are inevitable. Is it possible to grow lethargic in the faith? If you have to ask, you probably got saved a couple of hours ago. Consider where you are right now. Are you facing a challenge? The Bible tells us that God will not give you more to carry than the strength He's given you to carry it. On the other hand, perhaps you've reached a point of intense comfort (not necessarily wealth) and have simply grown bored or apathetic. It may be time for a challenge.

If you've ever read Chesterton you'll understand the fact that you can read his books in any order and they'll likely make just as much sense backward as forward. Most people who have attempted to read 'Orthodoxy' scrunch up their foreheads at the mere mention of the name and declare that they're not sure what in the world he was talking about. Perhaps his own work made little sense to Chesterton himself. And yet, maybe one in a thousand who read him are continually drawn to the way he takes you on a journey of spontaneous spiritual thought, and it's a journey worth taking. Below are some of my favorite quotes and each is a slice of prime ribeye to be savored and chewed on.
-On the smallness of man... "We sit in the starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear."
-On religion in general... "All the real argument about religion turns on the question of whether a man who was born upside down can tell when he comes right way up.
-On spiritual evolution... "The greatest disaster of the 19th century was this: that men began to use the word "spiritual" as the same as the word "good." They thought that to grow in refinement was to grow in virtue. When scientific evolution was announced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality. It did worse: it encouraged mere spirituality. It taught them to think that so long as they were passing from the ape they were going to be angels. But it has been found that you can pass from ape and go to the devil. Man may claim to be on the side of angels but most are on the side of fallen angels."
-On spiritual ignorance... "If a shade arose from the underworld, and stared at Piccadilly (famous intersection in London), it would quite not understand the idea of an ordinary closed carriage. He would suppose that the coachmen on the box was a triumphant conqueror, dragging behind him a kicking and imprisoned captive. So if we see spiritual facts for the first time, we may mistake who is uppermost. It is not enough to find the gods; they make themselves obvious; we must find God."

A veteran minister gave me the following advice once. He said, “Never trust a person who doesn’t bring their Bible to church.” I tilted my head to the side in true contemplative fashion and gave a slight nod as if to say, “Hmmm, I got it.” He then said, “And never trust a person who does bring their Bible to church.” I understood, then, that he didn’t know people and had probably been burned a time or two and just needed to meet the right people in order to make a full recovery to that place where you trust implicitly with the sacrificial love of Jesus. Years later, I now understand, that he knew the things of which he spake. When people let you down, you tend to wonder if they knew what they were doing all along (insert evil laugh here) or if they simply got caught up in some emotional current and were swept away unawares (insert innocent blinking deer in headlights look here). Someone told me once that we tend to judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. Some people have great intentions but simply can’t get their act together, and some people use outwardly righteous actions to disguise evil intentions. Either way, when things don’t go like we plan, we look for someone to blame. And blame never produces anything good in us. Consider the following. If we blame ourselves then we deal with guilt and shame. If we blame someone else it produces hate and bitterness. If we just blame the world as if that’s just the way things are, then we deal with depression and frustrated helplessness. So then, if we want to protect ourselves, we probably would do well to neither trust nor blame. Who do you really trust? I’ve found a precious few people in my life toward which I can trust. This leads to loyalty which is a lost virtue among humanity this day. Loyalty doesn’t mean that those around you agree with you or follow your leading blindly. Loyalty is a person who cares enough about you to protect you. If they see you falling, they run to catch you. If they see you in error, they care enough to attempt to open your eyes to it. It’s when they hear a rumor and defend you until they have uncovered all of the facts. It’s when you love people behind their back. Disloyalty is when you see someone falling and you point it out to those around you with no regard to reaching out to rescue them. It’s when you see someone in error and point the error out to others without ever caring enough about the individual to confront them, thus destroying your relationships from the inside out. It’s when you see a solution, but you fail to reveal it to those who need it most. It’s when you see someone who is dying and you fail to give them the medicine that you hold in your hand. When it comes down to it, loyalty is one of the finest traits in a friend. Those to whom you extend it, will never forget it. Those to whom you deny it, will likely do the same. Oscar Wilde said, “A true friend is someone who stabs you in the front.” The Bible puts it like this. Pro 17:17 A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. How many friends do you truly have? This would be a good time of the year to let them know what they mean to you.

Every now and then I spend a day or so pondering a single verse of scripture. The cogitation for today is "always be ready to give an answer to every man who asks, the reason for the hope you have within you." 1 Peter 3:15 Not to answer every question. But to have an explanation for the hope you have within you. Stands to reason then that if you have no hope within you, it doesn't really matter how many questions you can answer. I believe over the years we have taken this to mean that we ought to have all our ducks in a row as far as the apologetics are concerned. Come up with all of the answers before the questions are asked so that you appear to know what you're talking about. In doing this you will demonstrate the illusion of intelligence, appear to be the expert, intimidate the inquisitive, and relieve the skeptic of the need for personal study, after all, since you already have all of the answers you must have already asked the questions. But the second part of this verse gives the hint as to the question they should be prompted to ask. "What is the reason for the hope that you have?" So then, our lives ought to be lived in such a way as to display the kind of hope that provokes such a question. So then, your intimacy with Jesus Christ, from which flows the hope that lies within, is of paramount importance. You can't give what you don't have. This is why anyone, of any age, can witness to the reality that is the saving power of God in Jesus Christ. He doesn't extend hope to merely the crusty intellectual. He holds out hope to everyone.