Hi.
I haven’t written here in a while.
It’s
been tough to come up with words of faith lately.
I’m
not sure why, since I’ve been hanging close to God since our absence from church
in the fall. I guess it’s just been harder to share since I got out of practice
of regularly writing about faith.
Doesn’t
that happen often? We get out of the habit of doing something good, and one day
we realize we hadn’t done it in over a month.
Writing
about faith isn’t the same as having faith. The Bible says “It’s impossible to please God without
faith because the one who draws near to God must believe that he exists and
that he rewards people who try to find him.” Hebrews 11:6
But
the Bible also says “In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t
result in faithful activity.”James 2:17
And on and on and on.
I’m no Bible scholar, so I won’t provide an
in-depth analysis about the relationship between faith and good works, fearing
that I might make a mistake and lead anyone astray. But basically, you can’t
please God by only doing good things, and you can’t claim faith if you don’t show
it by the things you do. If we have faith, we should do good things to practice
and strengthen it, and we should do good things out of faith and not for our
own glory.
This blog came out of a suggestion from our
pastor, who approached me at church and said that he’d like me to “use my
powers for good.” I said "um, okay," and our church shares my link on their weekly newsletter. Once in a while people tell me they read my
blog, and lately I’ve been wondering just how far back the one or two people
who have approached me needed to go in my archive to read something new.
But is writing about my faith a good work? I’ve
been writing online for enough years to know I couldn’t possibly be doing this
for my own glory – an extremely small number of people read what I have to say,
and it’s impossible to know the impact of these words. It’s fair to say that I
am doing this for my own enjoyment and edification, and hoping that God is
using my writing to benefit that small handful of people who are reading. Am I
really using my powers for good? Especially if I’ve dropped the ball and write only sporadically?
I truly believe that God put us each here to
influence each other in ways that expand and strengthen his Kingdom on earth
and in heaven. We don’t know how we are being used by God in our everyday
lives. And we have to lay down our own lives daily to live for him if that is
what we want. We exercise our free will to either do for God or do for
ourselves. It gets tangly in my mind when I do something that I truly enjoy –
am I doing this for me, or for God? Can God still use my efforts if I’m consciously
only doing them for myself?
I have to believe that he does. Sometimes I think
about writing for days and weeks and months and whine It’s so harrrrrrd and I force myself to fumble through my thoughts and
then other times I think to myself Wow, I
really have something to say here and the ideas flow and I read and re-read
and hurt myself from patting my own back so much.
I know enough about God to realize that it’s his
will to do whatever he wants with my words, whether copious or scarce. Or whatever I’m doing when I’m not writing. That as long as I give my
life to him daily, he is using my efforts for his plan. That’s where my faith
lies: in trusting him to use the powers
he gave me for good.
What “powers” or gifts have you received by God that you use for good?
Do your faith and good work often get tangled up with or overshadowed by
your own desire for glory?
How does God help you stay on track of doing good things for him by
faith?
