The Simplicity of Faith
By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. (Hebrews 11:8)
When God commands us our obedience will reveal our faith. We are saved through faith, not through the act of obedience alone, but through the attitude of the heart that trusts in God.
We are called to a relationship first before we are commanded to do very much, but this relationship with God will not take shape except through his commands. We know God because we walk with him, because we follow his leadership, and this is the simplicity of faith.
We know our earthly fathers because we walk with them in obedience, and we learn their ways. We cannot know anyone apart from the revelation of himself through his choices and actions. We do not know our fathers well if all they did was to command us and never took us with them to work along side of them. But as we work with them, and even as we play with them, we get to know them, and our confidence in their love toward us has the opportunity to grow. We learn acceptance, methods, patterns, desires, purposes, plans, actions, and more by simply spending time with them.
I was close to my grandfather growing up because he watched me for many years, and we hoed his garden together, sat on the back porch together, drank iced tea together. I learned to do the things he did, as he showed me and told me. Obedience to him was not an unpleasant thing because I was with him. He showed me what to do by doing it first himself. Christ described such a dynamic with the Father, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19).
Abraham’s faith experience was found in his obedience to specific commands. He experienced God as God led him out of the ancient city of Ur and into the land of Canaan. He left a specific city — and to follow Christ requires us to leave the world. He began a journey to a new place — and to follow Christ requires us to have a new direction in life. Step by step Abraham learned about God, about his will, about his leadership, and he learned to trust God’s heart.
God reveals himself to us in the midst of our circumstances. He does not reveal himself, nor can he reveal himself, apart from real life situations. We can learn nothing in a vacuum that is void of familiar things and ideas. We progress in learning from what we know to what we do not know, step by step, and this is the only way we can learn. We must start with the most simple truths, the most simple concepts, the most simple commands, and learn faith in God and obedience to his will in them. This is the only way to progress. There is no such thing as theoretical obedience or a theoretical Christian.
Never despise your circumstances, for these are the very things that God will use to reveal himself to you. They may be unpleasant, but in them and through them he will reveal himself. I am commanded to be patient, for example, but the only shape that patience may take is with people and circumstances that I am currently dealing with. I will never know what patience is unless I can see it in my circumstances, then I can say, “Oh, that is what patience is.” Likewise, I am commanded to love, also, but love must have a real object, an authentic flawed human being. So, I may say, “Oh, that is what love is like.”
I am told that the Spirit gives self-control to me, but I must let this self-control be expressed in my current surroundings, using things at my disposal to become more disciplined — alarm clocks, notebooks, Bibles, devotional guides.
And we are often the objects of someone else’s love and patience and kindness, even their forgiveness.
We will, as we continue to follow him and grow in knowledge and faith, learn that God is greater than all of these things we experience on earth, that hope and love and joy have an eternal reality linked to the heart of the eternal God, but even then, as long as we are on this earth, we will still link these eternal attributes of God to specific experiences and circumstances and people.
And this means that we also have the privilege of modeling for others the character of God, introducing them to his love for them. God’s patience and kindness, as well as his love, are first learned through the loving kindness of another Christian expressed toward us. The next time you are put to the test, the next time you feel your patience and kindness becoming weak, consider the role God has entrusted to you, to model for someone what these things are.
