Wednesday, May 05, 2010

When words and actions don't line up

We’re in a stupor.
We lose our passion. We stop thinking realistically, not in the moment at all. Then we stop thinking. Period. We don’t address our own spiritual desires and failures because we don’t address anything. We sit in the pew, the same one we sat in last week. The perfectly contoured rut in the padded seat is a fitting symbol of the rut in our spiritual life. We barely listen. We make brief mental assent to the thought provoking points but soon shut down our brains again.
Here’s an example. We say we believe in gravity, that we’ll die if we step off a high place and that we don’t want to die. Then we step off. Why? Are we lying? Insane?
We say we believe God’s Word is true. We say we don’t want to sin, that we love him enough to sacrifice for him. We say we expect consequences to be bad for us if we rebel against his word, but still we rebel. Why? Are we lying or insane? I think it’s neither. We’re disconnected from reality. We’re in a stupor. Which is bad enough but worse, we don’t know how to get it back.
Until Dad had a heart attack, I would say things like, “I need to eat better,” or, “I need to lose twenty pounds.” But, that was only lip-service, my way of saying, “Since I acknowledge the truth, I now am given a grace period to do nothing about it.” Saying it makes me think that other people now think I’m doing something about it.
Romans 11 says its unbelief that does it.
We don’t believe in -the power of God
-the Word as Truth
-our gifting
-spiritual life
-God’s existence
So, believe. It’s a mental process. But it also includes actions, actions speak louder than words, they back up what we say we believe. James tells us that over and over again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh so true!!

Love you!!
Ma

Jo Schaffer said...

You nailed it. Believing is not enough...gotta live it.
http://jostorm.blogspot.com/