Reflection
If God is truly holy, then taking off our shoes and bending in awe might be a better response than looking from side to side to take inventory of who’s there and who’s not. I find it hard enough to have faith without people co-opting and abusing it in the name of their own fundamental righteousness. What is faith if not hope in the unseen? And if unseen, then how can we lock down The Truth as if we know it? It is human nature to fear uncertainty, confine paradox, and hammer away at ambiguity with our doctrines and creeds. Faith asks at least a thimbleful of humility, a cherishing of mystery, and a willingness to live with unknowing.
Linda DeGraf
Prayer
Create in me a new heart.
Action
Do humility, mystery, and living with unknowing define your faith? Do you accept the arrogance that often that often poses as certitude? Do you lock God into the smallness of your definitions? How can your faith expand its boundaries?
Suggested Reading
That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:5
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.
Pope Francis
The function of faith is not to reduce mystery to rational clarity, but to integrate the unknown and the known together in a living whole.
Thomas Merton
Often people fill in this emptiness by insisting that they possess the truth. The fragility of their faith is betrayed by their strident insistence on being right and by their efforts to force their views on others. They seem afraid of the very things that define religion: mystery and trust.
Thomas More
Like the sun and the stars, faith is a natural part of our soul life—we have only to learn to put our trust in this intuitive sense to begin to feel its healing effects.
Pithia Peay
Faith is not about how we feel; it’s about how we live.
Anne Lamott
The real challenge is to maintain faith in all its simplicity! Simple faith clearly is a leap across the chasm of unanswered questions. That is the beauty of it.
Richard Patterson
God enters by a private door into every individual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson