And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6
Today was a day to grow and build my faith, in the midst of it I read the challenging words below.
I swirl the Words around, wine shocking dead tastebuds: “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.”
A shell splinters.I scrawl it across paper:
The pen hovers over paper. What are the things that I don’t have the skill set for, the resources for, the route for?
I know those things, like a man knows his demons. I look over at my husband, throat dry.
And the words trip out, disoriented. “The things in my life that require faith are the things that terrify me.” Children and husband look up from their journals, heads tilted in question. I know I’m supposed to be writing, but the pen’s found bedrock and I shout Eureka. Shout and tremble.
“Doesn’t that verse mean that to please God, I have to do move out into places of fear?” Farmer Husband lays down his pen, pushes his chair back, ready to receive all of me.
“I mean, it clearly says: Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And I hate to say it….” I say it anyways. We’re family and this is the embrace of transparency.
“But not much in my life requires faith. I intentionally construct my life that way: do things I know I can do, with means I have, in territory familiar to me. But isn’t God saying that to please Him we need to live in this wild leap of faith?”
I glance down again at that verse printed onto parchment of God’s Word, thin paper, light shining through, right into your soul. “That’s terrifying space.”
I take a deep breath, look him in the eye, and whisper my paraphrase. “It’s impossible to please God unless I do things I’m afraid of.”
From A Holy Experience
Mighty Anchor 