My own experience of faith and doubt is not one that I find to be that uncommon. As I look back over the years of my life it could not be more obvious that God has constantly been at work. I am thankful for the way that He has used my experiences and even my struggles in the Fiji fraternity during my college days to help me better understand how to relate to and minister to the guys in the house now. I never would have made it through 2 tough years working college Young Life down in Alabama if I wouldn’t have learned how to persevere through tough times while playing football here at the UW. The people God has used in my life have been obvious as I can pinpoint conversations and invitations given to me that guided me to the place I am in now. I have complete faith as I look into my past that God has guided my steps, even the times I have doubted what was going on.
As I look down the road in the future I am confident in the hope that I have in Christ Jesus. I do have faith in where he is leading me and that he is in control in my life and that when I look back in 15 years I will be even more confident that he has been at work than I am right now.
But where I get stuck often, is how often I question if God is at work in my life right now. And when I can’t see it or feel it, it is hard to know if it is real. Now this mostly comes at times where I don’t want God to actually be God, I want him to respond to my personal desires, but I still I get wrapped up in wondering what it looks like to experience God’s love in the present. “If he loved me, would this have happened?” I often ask thinking I know best for myself. And if I have faith in the past, and hope in the future, why don’t I always know how to experience that love in the present? What does that love look like? How do I know that it is here and active and present when I don’t feel it?
As God spoke into the silence over 2000 years to awaken the world that he is ever present on this earth, what came out of it was a tangible expression of his love. First in the Christmas story, soon followed by the Easter story. And the way that I experience that love in the present, is by the faith I have that when Jesus paid the price on the cross so many years ago, he did so out of a love for me that I can’t even fathom. And I absolutely believe that if Jesus Christ would have died just for me, and if I was the only one saved that day, that he would do it all again, just for me.
It doesn’t answer every question I have, but it does help to understand what love really is.
Posted by Mike McEvoy
As I look down the road in the future I am confident in the hope that I have in Christ Jesus. I do have faith in where he is leading me and that he is in control in my life and that when I look back in 15 years I will be even more confident that he has been at work than I am right now.
But where I get stuck often, is how often I question if God is at work in my life right now. And when I can’t see it or feel it, it is hard to know if it is real. Now this mostly comes at times where I don’t want God to actually be God, I want him to respond to my personal desires, but I still I get wrapped up in wondering what it looks like to experience God’s love in the present. “If he loved me, would this have happened?” I often ask thinking I know best for myself. And if I have faith in the past, and hope in the future, why don’t I always know how to experience that love in the present? What does that love look like? How do I know that it is here and active and present when I don’t feel it?
As God spoke into the silence over 2000 years to awaken the world that he is ever present on this earth, what came out of it was a tangible expression of his love. First in the Christmas story, soon followed by the Easter story. And the way that I experience that love in the present, is by the faith I have that when Jesus paid the price on the cross so many years ago, he did so out of a love for me that I can’t even fathom. And I absolutely believe that if Jesus Christ would have died just for me, and if I was the only one saved that day, that he would do it all again, just for me.
It doesn’t answer every question I have, but it does help to understand what love really is.
Posted by Mike McEvoy
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