http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xm6ihZR5Pt4/TasJa8VK3rI/AAAAAAAAB9c/pd8NPuxjq08/s1600/Liberate-your-Art-B

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Contemplation

It's hour three of my 13 hour flight from Beijing and I'm already getting contemplative and introspective.

I've been sitting here - actually laying here as I have three empty seats to stretch out in - God is so good even to give us little things like 3 empty seats:). I've been laying here thinking about the "greenhouse of faith" that I'm leaving behind.  I've been thinking about the difference between growing your faith and giving your faith and I've come to the conclusion that - there is no difference.  

It seems that we, as Christians, always feel like we have to be so intentional with our faith - always giving, always doing, always reaching out.  However, when I consider what faith is and what active, growing faith is... It's imploding!  

Imploding is a word I use often in my line of work.  So let me explain my thought process via example.

In a hospital CS, most departments will have a machine called an ultrasonic.  An ultrasonic is a kind of bath of water, usually about 12-15 gallons.  You take a set of dirty instruments and immerse it down into this bath, push the "on" button and its starts sending out high frequency waves through this bath of water which subsequently creates these tiny little bubbles that start churning out through the water and land on the dirty surgical instruments and then IMPLODE!  This is the most amazing way to clean!  When you blow a bubble and it EXPLODES, it merely pops and makes a big noise and just spatters everywhere being nothing more than a nuisance rather than something amazing.  But the amazing act of IMPLOSION is that when those tiny bubbles hit the instrument and a chunk of debris, the bubbles implode and creates this amazing vacuum that just sucks everything in with it on the way out.

Imploding faith is this faith that is so deep and so spontaneous that it goes out in everyday life and just implodes because its so full of God.  And when it does so, instead of just making noise and mess -it actually just spontaneously draws in the mess and the yuck and when faith pulls mess and yuck in, it hands it to God who makes more amazing implosions.

Faith is the thing scripture calls unseen but it is seen because we experience it daily and when we experience those small bursts of faith, it can't help but affect others.

What I think God has taught me these past weeks is -don't worry about giving your faith - it's not yours to give anyways... Be more concerned with growing your faith because through growing it you can help but start living it and by living it, it just naturally implodes it and then God can take those people that your implosions pull in and God can touch a heart and can cause an implosion there.

I've been imploded on these past few weeks.  It's an amazing experience and it makes me want to go home and start looking to God more to grow my faith so that my sharing comes through those same natural implosions that I've witnessed in China. 

Thank you for your imploding faith - Zach, Julie, Phyllis, Garry, Elaine, JJ - and others that I indirectly/directly experienced through being involved in a conversation or witnessing your faith in action while you were showing hospitality.  Thanks to the implosions that you created with Zach and Julie!  

This post is dedicated to all those great greenhouse Christians that I've left behind who are working through their faith - keep on working and doing great things for God through that working through!  We'll be praying for you!

No comments: