SPECULATION ARMS

Let us reach! That is the clarion call of faith at times. To extend our trust beyond the limitations of what we see or know we can handle by strength.

Trusting God can be one of those issues that doesn’t always lend itself to reason. While it should from our point of view, we understand the Lord doesn’t have to do things always in a way that makes sense from our point of view.

We have the scriptural role models such as the prophets that God asked in some cases to do some thing that were not always logical. And I can appreciate that if any of us were to have asked someone like Isaiah when he was walking around naked for three years we might raise an eyebrow if he said the lord told me to.

But just being aware that this can be the way the life of faith is doesn’t justify the times we claim some bizarre behavior is God’s inspiration. Knowing and keeping balanced in our toil of trust is so critical in life. Extremism may have a certain emotional benefit from the standpoint of making us feel good about our effort and it helps to prove our sincerity, but if our actions are motivation only by our desires and not really by the Lord it can truly in with disaster.

How do we find the middle ground between extremism in faith and not trusting? It can be a challenge, but as with so many things it starts with letting God’s light of truth shine into our thinking. That begins with using the scriptures as our guidelines as well as asking the Lord in prayer to give us wisdom.

I can’t speak for others, but I know there have times when my emotions dominated my choices. I acted out of impulse and didn’t always have pleasing God as my primary desire. And the results often reflected that reality.

So in saner and calmer moments I have been able to wait upon the Lord. And sometimes the life of faith is the challenge to truly be willing to accept his choice. That might not always balance with our desires. It is the ledge of obedience upon, which we must at times stand.

Deep down where our mind is most comfortable and the walls of self esteem shelter from reality is where God’s light can truly shine. But it will show us what the writing on the walls we scribbled in our torment or delight truly mean. The hard part is accepting the answers he gives, good or bad.

Speculation never ends in life. The mind naturally flows towards it when the horizon of possibility has yet to dawn in our thinking. It is a naturally process to want to reach it. But stepping by our own pace and not the Lord’s doesn’t make the results better.

We can learn, we can listen, but most of all we must live with the tempered state of reason granted through maturity where faith is served as a banquet of spiritual nutrition entrees instead of a feel good snack. May we all rejoicing when we speculation by God’s standard.