Saturday, July 19, 2008

Relearning yet again: Lessons on Faith

I've posted this in Jun 2007 one year ago; and I've realized that I'm still learning to live by faith, so I've reproduced this below again.


I realized that there on some things on the way of Christ that you'll relearn again and again. It is the doing again of the simple things that characterize faith and builds into your character. I've quoted Buechner again below on his poetic definition of Faith.

"Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement towards, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting. Faith is journeying through space and time.

So if someone (and this frequently happens) were to come up and ask me to talk about my faith, it's exactly that journey through space and time I'd have to talk about. The ups and downs of the years, the dreams, the odd moment, the intuitions. I'd have to talk about the occasional sense I have that life isn't just a series of events causing other events as haphazardly as a break shot in pool causes billard balls to go off in many directions, but that life has a plot the way a novel has a plot - that events are somehow leading somewhere.

- Frederick Buechner, Going on Faith"

Lord grant me the grace and strength for each new day, as I, in the face of my many weaknesses, respond once again to follow hard after you on this journey through time and space. Help me to believe that events are somehow leading somewhere.

Ollie
Jul 2008

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