Faith and Obedience

This week the ideas (and difficulties) of faith and obedience have really hit me. Here are some of my thoughts thus far.

Faith: "The call to believe that the true God, the world's creator, has loved the whole world so much, you and me included, that he has come himself in the person of his Son and has died and risen again to exhaust the power of evil and create a new world in which everything will be put to rights and joy will replace sorrow." Wright models this definition of faith on belief, love , and obedience (through repentance). I have been thinking about this a lot since I listened to Darrell talk about the 10th Commandment on Thursday.

I am so frustrated by how I lack faith in every facet: belief, love, obedience. I mean, this is nothing new to deal with. The problem is that I fall into coveting so easily within all of this. I become fed up (with my failures), determined, and thus aim to forcefully increase my belief, love, and obedience.

Lately Abba is telling me "I have created you for myself." I have been sitting with this liberating truth all week. It's sustained me, and may it sustain me forever more, as it should. I have been created to have faith like a child. As a kid, I would do everything by myself to the point of absurdity (at least to those around me). I would always talk with myself (feel free to laugh) and come up with games to be entertained. On Sundays when the 49ers would play I would grab my nurf football and play a REAL game of football while the game was on. I had the privilege of being both Steve Young and Jerry Rice since I threw the ball to myself and always scored a touchdown. In order to play defense I would become the opponent's offense and constantly fail to catch the ball or I would get 'tackled' just short of a first down. I would also ride my bike and play basketball alone. I would practice free throws and make deals that if I made 10 in a row I would get a boat when I grow up. I took it as far as to play chess against myself or a stuffed animal. Remarkably I won quite often. There is something special about those times when I was a kid. To a degree it is unfortunate that I did not have someone to throw the ball with, or shoot hoops, or play chess with. What I say next could either sound absurd or make perfect sense: I never once felt alone while doing these things. In fact, I felt the presence, pleasure, and joy of the Lord within them. There was not a thing that could bring me down in these moments. And although I was 'raised' within the Catholic church (to age 10) while having not one idea who Jesus was until I was 17, I came to know small portions of my Abba through prayer and play time all alone. I reason this because when you are truly feeling alone, there is no joy. Joy comes through community with others (such as God).

"I have created you for myself." This is the God of the universe. He created a crazy kid who has nothing to offer but a fake touchdown, missed free throw, and loner game of chess for Himself! Are you kidding me?! Could I, the 10 year old Zach Evans, offer LESS? This same God reminds me that in being created for himself, it means I am created to be filled by him and no one else. When I don't do this I stumble into making myself ruler of my life and choosing my own inhumanity (sin). Sin: "Failing to hit the target of complete, genuine, glorious humanness." With that, I agree that humanness is beautiful. May I be thankful for humanness made in the image of God. That fully human would mean faith and obedience to God, because he created us so that we need nothing other than himself -for He is the Bread of Life, the Heart-Searcher, the Life-Giver, Beloved, Lover, Love. What a fantastic Being to rely on. This tells me that I should probably be more like the 10 year old rejoicing in community with God the Creator, as opposed to the 22 year old who tries to manifest faith on his own, instead of praying in every moment of my existence, "May I decrease, so that You increase." I need to go shoot some free throws with my Abba!