Unless

Floorline

photo by bgrace

What would it take to shake your faith?

Have you ever thought about it?

Where that invisible line lies on the floor of your soul that, once crossed, will leave you grasping for solid ground, rethinking everything you once believed, wondering who God is since He's not who you thought He was?

I can still believe unless...

I can't have faith in God anymore unless...

You do realize that you have that line, don't you?

Wonder where that line is? You probably don't know. In fact, I don't think any of us really know...but God does.

What if He chooses to increase our faith in Him by crossing it?

(Pun intended.)

I've seen it happen...

to my friend, when the church cast her out when she was honest about a lifelong struggle with homosexuality. Her Mom repeatedly called her on the phone to tell her to repent or she would go to hell. She wasn't allowed around her nieces in case they could be harmed by her, though she is one of the most gentle, loving people I know. Even though she prayed and prayed for God to take these feelings away and He didn't but allowed her to suffer at the hands of those who call themselves "His," those who would never have any idea what she has experienced. She reached her unless.

...to friends whose child died of cancer after suffering severely even though they prayed every day since he was born for good health. They reached their unless.

And I saw it happen when God clearly spoke to a friend and made her a promise and asked her to follow Him in something so hard that it almost cost her her sanity. And then He didn't come through...at least not in the way she thought. So she picked up the pieces and then He asked her a second time to be obedient and trust and it seemed He wouldn't come through again. And she reached her unless.

Sometimes God takes us past the line of our unless to humble us and to show us that we have that line.

Sometimes He takes us past that line to raise up the things we think about God against the truth of God and sift and expand our understanding of God. (Yes, God is faithful, but in what way? How? When? How does my understanding of God need to be expanded or rethought?)

Sometimes He stretches us out until we almost snap because He is strengthening us to stand through even greater duress.

And then there are the times when He takes us to the point where it seems everything and everyone has failed us, including God Himself, to show us that even in those times and through those times He is faithful and has been faithful all along...faithful enough to shake us hard enough to strengthen and purify our faith in Him.

When you have truly sold yourself (my all for Yours) to Christ in and through the deepest part of your soul, there is NOTHING more precious to you than your faith in Him. (Except Himself, but that can be of small comfort when you feel you can't trust Him.)

My friend is a great example of this...because when God came through at her threadbare state of faith and sent her a check for 45,000 dollars, she was so absolutely overjoyed that He was after all faithful, that writing that check over to the one she had pledged it to in faith was simply a glorious benefit that came along with the painful experience of her faith being stretched. Maybe to some the giving up of that kind of money would have been a great sacrifice. To her it was nothing, NOTHING compared with the fulfilling of God's promise to provide if she would be obedient. 45,000 was given to the kingdom, but a more steadfast faith was the far greater treasure given to my friend.

Are we willing to be taken past our unless?

How far?

Here is an excerpt I read today from A.W. Tozer that is very challenging regarding our faith. It is a bit lengthy, but well worth the time.

Faith is a Perturbing Thing

The faith of Paul and Luther was a revolutionizing thing. It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person altogether. It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back. It said goodbye to its old friends as surely as Elijah when he stepped into the fiery chariot and went away in the whirlwind. It had a finality about it. It snapped shut on a man's heart like a trap; it captured the man and made him from that moment forward a happy loveservant of his Lord. It turned earth into a desert and drew heaven within sight of the believing soul. It realigned all life's actions and brought them into accord with the will of God. It set its possessor on a pinnacle of truth from which spiritual vantage point he viewed everything that came into his field of experience. It made him little and God big and Christ unspeakable dear. All this and more happened to a man when he received the faith that justifies.

Came the revolution, quietly, certainly, and put another construction upon the word "faith." Little by little the whole meaning of the word shifted from what it had been to what it is not. And so insidious was the change that hardly a voice has been raised to warn against it. But the tragic consequences are all around us.

Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus. To exercise it we have only to rest our one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul. The general effect is much the same as that which men feel after a visit to a good and wise doctor. They come back from such a visit feeling extra good withal smiling just a little sheepishly to think how many fears they had entertained about their health when actually there was nothing wrong with them. The just needed a rest.

Such a faith as this does not perturb people. It comforts them. It does not put their hip out of joint so that they halt upon their thigh; rather it teaches them deep breathing exercises and improves their posture. The face of their ego is washed and their self-confidence is rescued from discouragement. All this they gain, but they do not get a new name as Jacob did, nor do they limp into the eternal sunlight. "As he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him." That was Jacob--rather, that was Israel, for the sun did not shine much upon Jacob. It was ashamed to. But it loved to rest upon the head of the man whom God had transformed...The faith of Christ will command or it will have nothing to do with a man. It will not yield to experimentation. Its power cannot reach any man who is secretly keeping an escape route open in case things get too tough for him. The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

(From The Root of the Righteous, by A.W. Tozer)

I'm so grateful for the lives of my friends who have wrestled through the times God has taken them through their unless. I am challenged by their perseverance and their tenacity. It renews my strength to endure and persevere when I see them grasp on to God in the midst of great temptation to let go their hold. And it renews my faith when I see him show up in big ways--or even small ways--simply because I see that He keeps His word.

I've reached my unless so many times over the past few years I have lost count. But each time the Lord has renewed and strengthened my faith in HIM. With each renewal I have had to go through a violent refining. My faith cannot rest, even for a breath, in myself, or my own understanding or abilities. I have understood too little and weakened too often. It can only rest on Him. For this I am grateful...and expectant.

"The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it."

I Thess. 5:24