Easier Read Than Done

Sometimes it’s easier to hide behind a book – especially if its the Bible where there is plenty to learn. But that’s not real faith.

You’re browsing through a year of my struggle to live out what I read in the Bible. 2020 would have been worthless if I spent the entire year studying the Bible and never made a move in my real life based on anything I learned. I love to learn every little thing about the words written in their original context and languages. I could spend 6 months perfectly exegeting a text. (And if you know me, you know I might). But it’ll all come to nothing if I don’t ever risk anything on the God I’m getting to know in those pages.

I am on a quest to know Him – God, that is. I believe that quest leads anyone on it to come face to face with the Biblical scriptures and wrestle with who Jesus is. That’s why I’m passionate about studying the Bible. However, the Bible isn’t meant to reside in our minds: it’s supposed to push us to believe. Belief can always be seen in the rest of your life: knowledge cannot.

We think of belief as internal, but it only starts internally. Real belief always seeps out in tangible stuff. Like websites. This website and its contents are me believing the Bible; allowing the words of God in my life to grow into fruit.

Real faith has “fruit,” says James (2:14-26). Fruit is just the metaphor for the process of letting Gods Words grow from a seed in a small, dark, buried place inside you to something that can be seen, touched, tasted, enjoyed. Your faith and mine should be regularly maturing into fruit, and that only happens through small everyday actions and risks. I always try to keep growth going until I see the fruit. For some things (or in some years!) that takes longer than others. 2020 served up enormous internal and external hurdles, and this is me, believing anyway….

This is me believing that God sometimes frustrates our steps to direct our path.