The Flipped-side of Faith

Two things God brought before my eyes this week. This morning He connected them to us. One came from a thought shared at staff devotions. That one is for you, my love. The other was for me. I got it in my "quiet reading time." Then I recognized He began the work of this 8 years ago. As Michelangelo says, "The more the marble wears, the better the image grows." This image is growing clearer all the time...heaven knows the marble is wearing!

Here is the example for you: when Peter walked on water, he walked but promptly sank. He cried out, "Lord save me!" "And immediately Jesus stretched forth [his] hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? " The staff devotion was about the fact that Peter's lack of faith was not in Jesus. He saw Jesus walking on the water right in front of him. His lack of faith was in himself.

Here is the example for me: When Sarah was old, and they had waited a very long time for the coming of the promised child, three men visited her husband and reaffirmed the promise from God, saying it would happen within the year. Her response was to laugh. Again, not because she didn't have faith in the power of God, but because she lacked faith in herself. "How can a worn-out old woman like me enjoy such a pleasure?" she said.

This bond between these two has been crystallizing in my mind this morning...then it hit me these two were the names of our table assignments on our Emmaus Walk 8 years ago...that moment of our first real simultaneous spiritual awakening.

One more thing that is an exhortation to us.
Remember Peter means "the Rock."
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock [whence] ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit [whence] ye are digged.
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah [that] bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

And for me: For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Oswald Chambers gives this thought about the progression of things: as a farmer makes a garden, first he must plow the ground and prepare the soil. Doing this takes away a "great deal of natural beauty" for a time. This is where we are right now. This is not the time to look for the promised blossems. I am reminded of your dream about the City Worker who planted yellow flowers, but with a strange machine that did the planting...no human hand touched the plants. I think this is an important dream to remember now, but I don't know why...maybe so that you won't grow weary in waiting for the unknown to reveal itself.

"Everyone who asks receives." Matthew 7:8

The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to [him that is] weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. Isaiah 50:4

Happy Sabbath.