Faith

Gut Check #6

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Why is it that you have so much faith when praying for others in need,
but never for yourself?

Someone you know is facing impossible odds—cancer, unemployment in a down economy, a wayward child who appears lost for good. Cloudy, lonely walkThey come to you for prayer because they know you believe that God will make the impossible possible.

And yet, when you are facing your own impossible situation, the idea that God might actually make a way for you where there is no way seems a remote reality at best and never in a million years at worst. Your own track record appears to bear this out. Great things happen for others because you have faith for them, but as for yourself….

Many of us have been there. In fact, I have reason to believe that most American Christians suffer from this kind of inferiority complex when it comes to believing that God isn't just on the side of the other guy.

When I was running the Sunday evening prayer team ministry at my former church, I routinely encountered Christians who prefaced their request for prayer with this issue. They'd believed in the past for others, but their own problem lay daunting in their path. Sometimes, I think every third person confessed this fear that when they most needed help, God was too busy helping others to lend an ear to their "petty" problem.

Now I can include a million verses here contrary to that mistaken notion, but the fact is that the people who suffer from this (and most of us do to some extent) already know the verses. We just need to believe them.

Other posts in this series:

“Gut Check”—The Complete Series

Gut Check #5

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Why is it so hard to talk with your unsaved family members about Jesus?

 

Yes,  we all know the "prophet is not without honor except in his own country" passage, but does that excuse us?

Most of my extended family are not believers. I don't understand how this can be, but I also know that I've done next to nothing to share the Gospel with them, Where's that white sheep?except incidentally. Does my lack of initiative translate into a predestined trip to hell for them?

No one wants to think that—but then no one wants that axe hanging over his or her head, real though it be. I think that millions of us are hoping the whole issue would just go away, or we try to convince ourselves it will resolve itself without any need for us. Because nothing sticks out like a bigger sore thumb than a recalcitrant family member who won't bow the knee, right?

I don't know that my father was saved, though I did try to get through to him. As a young man he studied for the ministry, but he ended so badly that I have no assurance he was. Other family will debate that. Virtually no one is "in" on my mom's side of the family, from what I can tell, save for my mom and her sister (and her sister's husband). None would be considered born again believers, though like most Americans, a light veneer of Christian moralism covers them. I could be wrong, but shouldn't all of us be more certain with our family members?

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Gut Check #3

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Have you ever wondered if you've naturally (through cultural osmosis) fallen into a lifestyle that is antithetical to real, vibrant Christianity?

And worse, you're not sure how to change or you don't grasp what a more godly lifestyle looks like in America 2006?

 

Be an iconoclast! Shatter the illusion!Right now, this is a big struggle for me. I think the lifestyle most Christian Americans lead is contrary to the Gospel, no matter how much we plead that this is "a Christian nation." We look too much like the world, have been seduced by systems that destroy us spiritually, and are unwilling to fight against that tyranny, instead making peace by Christianizing things that harm our souls.

Yet breaking out of that Darwin-inspired nightmare will prove costly. Smashing systems always is. We might lose everything but Christ. Yet isn't that what He says must occur if we are to truly find the narrow path that leads to glory?

Something's gotta change. Christians once were iconoclasts. What are we now?

{Image: Still from Apple Computer's "1984" ad} 

 

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