faith...POP!
i realize i’m talking about an unnamed amazing super woman of the Scriptures, but we all are aspiring to be somebody, right?
“and he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, ‘ in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God not respected man. and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” {Luke 18.1-8}
theoretically this widow doesn’t exist. this is a story that Jesus made up as He taught here on earth. a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. {someone spiritual, i’m sure, taught me that.} though she doesn’t exist, the principle does.
persistent prayer. He hears.
faith on earth. He sees.
overcoming injustice. He responds.
faith in God has been displayed to me since i became dependent upon others. all the way back to my itty-bitty infant days. faith is a pretty incredible thing. i’ve always thought it was best understood as i watched someone else display faith on earth. they were the heroes. the superstars. the cancer survivors. {shout out to mom} the bush missionaries. {Margaret Burke who taught me to sing with an accent when home on furlough from africa} the mom with sets aside her career to invest in her autistic son, her toddlers, her sick husband. {no names mentioned, but you are ever precious and faith models}
while faith became more my own as i entered independent college years, i compare my prior encounters with Jesus to silly putty. {that’s a more delightful stretchy substance than playdoh} silly putty because my faith was stretched, but i could intellectually put it back together and make sense of it. and then put it right back in the red egg container, neatly packaged. there, that’s better.
if you stretch silly putty far enough it POPS! i dare you to try it. dig through your child’s toy bin. look for that red egg container. hopefully the putty is in there! give it a stretch.
my faith looks more like the aftermath of the silly putty. it has POPPED. while i didn’t begin this blogpost with silly putty in mind, but rather the persistent widow, God has a unique way of painting pictures for me. i’m daily grateful that He and I share that with each other.
when silly putty pops it’s in two pieces. the great faith stretch has now created a gap that only He can fill. that gap is turning into the most beautiful thing in my life. if you had told me that my faith on earth in God would eventually POP, i would have tried to protect it all the more.
but POP it has…
and i’m in the most beautiful place on all the earth.
persistent prayer.
faith on earth.
overcoming injustice.
that’s me.
He hears.
He sees.
He overcomes.
that’s Him.
POP!
what's going on with your faith here on earth? how is it being stretched?
let it POP! it creates this gap in which He can powerfully work.
while i’m enjoying the start of the summer with my kids,
i’m so glad to bring you some of my favorite posts.
i’ll be back with new and fresh posts in july.
but while i’m away, i’ll be instagramming our june stories
and replying to any comments here.