Have Faith?

I recently bought a new journal. I love doing that. The "chosen one" wasn't the one I found to be the most visually appealing (which is usually all I need), but the inscription -- Have Faith -- made me pause. I normally would pass on something like that, but this time I found myself drawn to it. In that moment, I realized that most often what I have is not faith, but doubt. Unbelief. I want to have faith! I identify with that guy in Scripture who prayed, "I believe. Help my unbelief!" I picked up the journal and flipped through the pages. They felt good, I liked the smoothness of the book itself; it all just felt right. (Plus the pages are gilded, so you know, score!)

They're just words on a book, but I hear Him whispering to my heart when I read them. Have Faith. There is so much in life that requires it. Things we walk through and believe... I like to think of myself as a realist, but maybe I'm not. Maybe what I really am is a cynic. A pessimist. Oh, I like to cut up and play around (which makes me seem happy and easy) but in the corners of my heart where the big questions live, that space is shared with an eye-roller, rich in unbelief.

Those are hard words to admit about oneself (especially when that oneself is me), but there are parts of me that don't want to let go of my beliefs, because they feel right and true... they're my prized possessions. We're taught to hold fast to who we are... to be ourselves. The thing is, I've believed these lies about myself for so long, they feel like me, and letting them go feels false... like I'm trying to be someone I'm not - but hello epiphany! I do want to be someone I'm not! I want to be changed. I want to be freed.

In this book I'm reading by Beth Moore, she says that God has crowned me with glory and dignity, that I am worthy of high esteem.  Oh that eye roller is tempted by such words.

I look at my journal and the words kick me in the gut. Have Faith. Believe. If I am to kick this insecurity in the gut, I must be willing to believe something different - that I'm wrong about me. That sort of revolutionary change in my way of thinking must be both radical and deliberate.... but that is the work of the believer, isn't it? To believe.

So as Beth says to me, I say to you: Believe it, sister.

Comments

  1. I love you tons....and thank you for this post! Your epiphany left me a little epiphanized myself...:) By the way, I think you're a rock star.

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  2. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. :) I am reading "the book" too. It was full of epiphanies for me, and I find myself quoting it (...to myself)very often. {You are crowned with glory and dignity...you are crowned with glory and dignity...}

    Such good.

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  3. Insecurity....it can cling to us like a blanket and rob us of life.
    Trust that you are exactly who God says you are, even when you feel it not for God does not (cannot) lie.

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