05/10/2023
Do you practice your faith? Do you add to it each day and make what you had from the day before a reflex? Becoming ingrained in our faith and deepening it over time requires us to practice what we hear preached, and what we have learned.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
2 Peter 1:5-7 ESV
We take our next breath and never really give it a moment's thought, but miss one and it rushes into the forefront of our consciousness. Each breath serves to sustain our lives. The average person blinks fifteen to twenty times a minute. As a matter of fact, we spend about ten percent of our waking day with our eyes closed; but I'll bet that until you read this you didn't remember the last time you blinked. Blinking moistens the eyes, but it is also a reflex that protects them, and this can happen in 1/3 of a second. It happens quicker than you can consciously form a thought. Our faith needs to be as automatic as these actions and reactions.
We make things automatic by practicing them. Repetitively doing something imbeds it in our sub-conscience. Musicians, artists, writers, assembly line workers, and Athletes understand the importance of practice (just to name a few). Have you ever been driving to work and started thinking about something in your life.... suddenly you are pulling into the parking lot at your place of employment and it scares you to realize that you don't know how you got there; you have no memory of the drive? When we practice our faith we are doing the very same thing. We no longer have to think through the more elementary aspects of what we believe, but instead we build upon what is already there.
The Empire State Building in New York and the Eifel Tower in Paris are impressive structures, but would they be here today if the construction crew had to begin anew each day they showed up on the job? NO! Some people treat their faith like a make believe crew of workers who must reconstruct something from the ground up every time they come to work. They treat faith like a remake of the movie "Groundhog Day." Their faith becomes trapped in its early stages and never progresses... it never becomes reflex or automatic. Jesus is referred to as the cornerstone in scripture. His gospel story is the foundation on which we build; not the starting point that we have to revisit in detail after every new experience. He wants us to treat Him differently as we grow in faith. It is the same desire we have for our children... we want them to mature and grow into fully functional adults.
“built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
Ephesians 2:20-21 ESV
Today I am 71 years old and I have grown older in not only years, but faith as well. I look back on life and realize that I am not the same person I was in my twenties, and I look at my faith and realize that it too has changed... matured. These are both parts of God's plan for us. Jesus was born as a baby, and then grew into a man; following the same aging process that we do. His ministry changed as well, so that by the time He changed water into wine, He was a fully mature spiritual being... ready to accomplish God's will for His life as a man.
Life takes practice, and spiritual things take practice too. We recite certain creeds and prayers as a part of our individual Liturgies, but as fully mature spiritual beings, we already know what we are about to say... we say them for those who are spiritually younger, and we repeat them to practice once more, lest we grow distant from them. When I am handed the wafer during communion I instinctively think "the body of Christ" and when I am offered the cup of wine/juice I don't really have to be reminded that it is the blood of Christ... yet it is important to practice and keep these thought honed to a keen edge.
What spiritual practices of faith have you already mastered? Do you even think about them consciously anymore? How about a new revelation in scripture that the Lord blessed you with just yesterday... are you going over and over it again as you tell others? Are you making it a reflexive part of your faith that will one day join such breaths of life as the liturgy of communion? We need to assimilate our lessons of faith. We need to draw them into us through practice, prayer, and repetition until they are as integral to us as our own DNA is to our body.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for filling me with your Holy Spirit, and becoming so engrained in me that I find myself comfortable just sitting quietly with you. I thank you for the blink reflex of my faith that shields me from sin, and the old familiar path that leads me away from evil. You are my comforter and the peace I feel inside while reading your Word. No longer am I anxious about our relationship or my knowledge of your Word and will. I know that you will walk with me in the cool of the evening and explain to me the depths of your thoughts in scripture. Holy Father I practice prayer and all of the behaviors you have instructed me in... Each repetition makes them more familiar and their reenactment easier. Lord, it is hard to believe that the way that was once so hard and full of pitfalls has become so easily traversed. I am amazed that the road has not changed, but my ability to traverse it has. You are truly remarkable and long suffering. You lead me in the paths of righteousness and I know that it is for your pleasure and not my deservedness. You are merciful and full of grace, and this is yet another thought that comes so naturally to me now. It is yet another breath that I take without thinking.... Praised be your name Father.
Rich Forbes