Aweikinin 18/12/2014

From Hebrews 11:1-4

H,

It is the old question of faith or works? Is it what we do that matters or what we intend to do? In the past you know how strongly I defended the intention over the deed. I used the famous bible line: “God judges the intention.” It was all fine and dandy and probably true but I forgot that other line, or ignored it because of how I had seen it misused, “faith without works is dead.” Obviously faith is in actions as well as in deeds. We are to worship with our entire mind, all of our heart and all of our body.

It is often automatic. The faith will lead you to the acts. I cannot think of any single person of faith who did not find something they were compelled to do. They might do it quite badly at first, and this is where the intention is vital, but they will often grow into doing it well, and if they do not get haughty or start playing to an audience it will continue to be worship. Intention ties the act back to God. Or good, as it tells us we are in sync with the higher perspective of the things we are doing. So often we fill our lives with the things that bring instant praise or prize. Too often we are upset or feel put down because we either expect we ought to be respected or our intentions should be clear to the human eye. How many fights are based on the simple premise “you do not understand me.” perhaps no one is meant to. It is possible that the lonely walk of living for God is a lesson in necessary isolation and you will get the same shtick that Noah got (“a boat on dry land, you fool”). That is what living in faith always is; a boat on dry land.  We cannot see and so we follow. Always, vision over visibility

The thing is to keep our eyes above. To remember why we do the things we do. To not get tired of doing good when we can and to not do good only so we can say or think or feel we did good. To give to the poor is to lend to God. True religion is to tend to the orphan, the widow, the needy and the brokenhearted. The unsexiest of tasks are the ones that have the omniscient attention of God. I suspect that the best people on earth are the ones doing the little tasks of making individual lives better in the darkest places on our planet. There will be no Nobel Prize for them. They do not care. They have their eyes set on the irresistible glory to come.