Faith As 'Proof Of Existence'

Those that regularly read my blog posts, I normally stay away from what some may call 'religious' speak. The following was on my heart and wanted to share with others. I am not trying to convert or preach to you in this piece, just sharing and allowing you to take what you might from it. So please allow me this little bit of leeway for today and as always, your comments are always welcome.

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As our great pastors at C3 - Atlanta always do, they always preach on those things most relevant in my life. I guess that I should feel sorry for other members of the congregation as those sermons are always written for what is going on in my life. For that I apologize to each and every one of you.

This past Sunday (May 3, 2009) was no different in Pastor Dean Sweetman's return to the pulpit, speaking on faith as a tangible and real thing. All of my life I have had faith in a 'believing' sense of what I can not see, hear, touch, taste or smell. Those are most of the physical senses that we have and are those which give us 'proof of existence' in life. Yet I never thought of faith as having a substance to itself. It has always been just something I was supposed to have.

At this point, you may wonder about a man nearing the age of 50 and still questioning faith. It happens to all of us and we continually learn through out our lives. For me, I've always questioned and tried to learn more about my belief. Faith has never been in question, but the example of it being a bridge between the natural and the spiritual shines a new light for me.

Now why in the world would I need a new perspective on faith in my life? Well, my wife Laura and I have eight kids, three grand kids; both of us come from large families with aging parents. This doesn't make our circumstances any harder or more intriguing then anyone else. It simply makes us human and like you, we have our opportunities in life to get our faith tested.

With those tests of faith that we are working through, I have been searching for new inspiration on how to let faith work for us. It isn't enough to just say, "I believe and all will be well." God has expectations for us and so many times we will simply go to the natural. It is those things that I previously mentioned, the physical 'proof of existence' that we run to many times.

Yet the bridge of faith from physical to spiritual is just as real as anything we could touch or see. So it is this bridge that I am envisioning to help us achieve what God has called for us. If we step out in faith, knowing that the bridge will be there, even though we can not see it, keep walking and the bridge will appear. With each step I take, the stronger the connection of my faith to what God has planned for me becomes.

It will be the bridge of faith that gives me proof of God's love for me, for you and for all the world.

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