the blind leap?

We can never understand the life of faith seen in Scripture and in serious Christian living unless
we drop the idea of faith as a 'blind leap' and understand that faith is commitment to action,
often beyond our natural abilities, based upon knowledge of God and God's ways.  The romantic talk of 'leaping', to which we in the Western world have become accustomed, actually amounts to 'leaping' without faith - that is, with no genuine belief at all.  And that is actually what people have in mind today when they speak of a 'leap of faith'.

- Dallas Willard, Personal Religion, Private Reality

Can true faith ever be 'blind'?  However limited our knowledge is, do we not base our belief on something?  Do we trust because we have a button we press that inspires trust?  Or do we trust because we know something about the person in whom we put that trust? 

Yes, we can have mistaken faith, based on error, misunderstanding or lies - but when these are exposed faith understandably shatters and no longer exists - because the base is taken away.  It sees through them.

If faith is described as seeing what is unseen how can it be blind?
Surely faith's hallmark is sight, not the lack of it?

Have we tried to stretch the vocabulary of faith to fit something else entirely?

the slow work of God

Words from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

all your heart

Trust in Yahweh with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

 in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

 Do not be wise in your own eyes;

fear Yahweh and shun evil.

 This will bring health to your body

and nourishment to your bones.

Proverbs 3:6-8

caged

I am feeling constantly infuriated by this silly fatigue. Perhaps something I caught over Christmas is still lurking, perhaps it has merely set me back, but whatever it is, the tiredness is at its most vicious, and I detest it. This week I have frequently been brought to tears with vexation and a sense of hopelessness. I cannot see an end to all this. I know from past experience that improvement does occur, and I can live relatively normally. The years at college, though tiring, were good years for me. These last two years or so have been the most difficult, since the very beginning, perhaps. This time it is harder to be hopeful.

I am not sure why, but something inside is missing. I have lost the trust that it will be all right. I struggle to find it, but when I do it does not stay with me, but slips between my fingers. And I am feeling hugely frustrated.

Neither my body nor my mind will co-operate, both are malfunctioning and I am feeling caged.

easy...

Easy to think: life is measured by achievement, or at least busy-ness. If I do not do this, then I am not...

Easy to forget: in quietness and trust is my strength; in repentance and rest is my salvation.

When the whirlwind threatens: lean back, pause, re-orientate.

Remember the reason.

"In repentance and rest is your salvation,

in quietness and trust is your strength,

but you would have none of it."

Isaiah 30:15