Why is it that we can know things in our heads, but then live like we’ve never heard of those ideas before? Faith is such a layered concept in that way. We believe in God, we believe in the Bible, we believe in His promises, and yet we worry, we speak coarsely, we hoard and indulge, we doubt, we control. We live as though we are our own gods, trying to work out every detail in our lives for our own glory.
A man who went to Israel with my tour group this past summer said the longest journey you’ll ever have to make is the 12 inch path between your head and your heart. Only then can all of those thoughts that you know to be true be let loose inside of you and finally be able to shape the way that you feel and steer the choices you make. It’s a matter of surrender.
My trouble is I thought I had surrendered to God, but apparently I had crept back up that 12 inch stairway back into my head. Maybe the journey is more like a treadmill than a stairway.
I’m constantly wowed by the God I read in the Bible and I pray as though I trust in that God and really believe He is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. But then I walk around, moping, stuck in a puddle of self-pity, wishing I had a pianist to serenade me with that Charlie Brown sad song. It doesn’t add up. My heart faith is not in line with my head faith and the discrepancy is greatly affecting my practiced faith.
So where to go from here? Good question that I really don’t know the answer to except to cling to whatever faith is active at the moment and trust that it is rooted in God’s truth. Thankfully I don’t have to forge my own journey, I just have to follow the one marked out for me and keep my feet moving so I don’t slide off the treadmill.
