The story of Asa, king of Judah. Really sad, actually. The prophet Asarja came to him and told him about God. Asa repented of his evil ways, and had a heart that was only for God. He got rid of all the other gods in Judah and had a long reign of peace. And that peace destroyed him. When trouble came, in the form of war with Israel, Asa trusted in the king of Aram rather than in God. Why do we want peace and quiet so much? Why does God give it to us? The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full of examples where people get rich and everything goes well because God blesses them, and then they forget about Him. David, Solomon, Asa--and me, of course. I'm guilty as well. Being a sinful creature can be so frustrating sometimes. It takes constant work to stay near God, and often challenges as well as to remind me that God is Lord, not me. I am in many ways struggling against the impossible.
But you know what? I'm OK with that. I like a challenge, especially with God at my side, guiding me and teaching me. More than that, though, I'm working for the right thing. I've seen the good things God has done in my life, and I know that God is good. I want to know Him better, serve Him better, love Him better.
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What is the difference between hypocrisy and faith?
It may seem like a simple question, but as I was writing the second paragraph of this post, I suddenly just... lost all connection with what I was writing. Suddenly I didn't feel what I was writing. Is that bad? I've definitely run into trouble in the past because I've stressed out way too much about how much of my faith I didn't feel. But I kept writing. Was that hypocrisy--writing something I suddenly didn't feel because I thought it was the "right" thing to write--or faith--writing what I believed even if right that second I couldn't feel it--? Isn't faith keeping what you believe even when you don't feel it, following God even when you're not sure, staying steady even when you don't want to? Would that make my decision to keep writing faith? When my feelings suddenly stopped, I stopped writing too. I didn't want to write something I didn't believe. Do I need to feel something to believe it? Isn't belief, like faith, acting on something even if your feelings don't agree every second of your life? But maybe " I didn't want to write something I didn't believe" was the wrong way to say that. Maybe instead of "believe" I should have written "feel". And are our feelings so important? Don't our feelings so often mislead us? Our feelings often tell us to put ourselves first, to ignore God, to do what feels good. And I certainly don't believe in doing whatever my feelings tell me to do. But to a certain extent I do have this belief that I should feel my faith, feel it and not just believe it. Is that a true idea? Is that something God wants us to believe? I'm not sure I think it is, honestly--our feelings are so easy to mislead and trick, after all. At the same time, it's not like we can just ignore our feelings entirely. If we do so, we risk letting them fester inside us until they become a problem in and of themselves. Lord, please guide me in how I listen to my feelings and how my feelings intercept with my faith.
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