Blog # 334 FAITHFUL

BLOG # 334    FAITHFUL

               Just think for a moment what a difference it would have made in your life if you had been born in Germany or in Japan or here in the United States. Just think of what a difference it would have made if you had been born into a family of two or of twelve. Think of the difference it would have made if you were born poor instead of rich, or rich instead of poor.  Think of how different it would be for you if  you were, at this moment, sick or well, or healthy instead of sick.

             The language you speak, the songs you would sing, the food you would eat, would  all be
different if  you were born in some other part of the world.  Your friends would be different, your education would be different, your house and clothes would be different if you were born either rich or poor.  Your ability to do and enjoy things, your energy, and your feelings would be different if you were healthy or sick at this moment.

             Now, with faith - in what way and to what extent does our faith in God and Jesus make a difference in our lives?   Take this past week as a sample.  How and to what extent did faith make a difference in your life?  At home. At work. In school. When you were alone. With others. When things went right.  When things went wrong. Do  the differences you think of, or lack of differences, surprise you?  Are you happy and satisfied with them? What  could you or should you change in order to make the picture more clear, more satisfying?  Good questions for growing in faith.

            Unless a Japanese or a German knows about some other language and customs he or she would hardly be aware of the fact he or he is different as a Japanese or a German. So I think it is with faith. Unless we stop from time to time to think of what difference our faith makes to us it might happen that it doesn't make much difference at all. And if we do not think of or know or desire the difference faith can make we will hardly turn out to be, as Paul describes people who have faith, a new creation, a different person.
         
             I think perhaps the most fundamental and among the most important differences faith cam make in our lives is to  give us the possession of a habit of living in the presence of God.