Birds can fly. They don’t think about flying; they fly. They don’t wonder how they can fly; they just fly. Birds don’t wonder why they can fly; they fly. Birds express their bird-brain – sized faith in flying – by flying. Perhaps, human faith is like that. We have faith that God can and will do what He says He can and will do – or we don’t. It’s a matter of faith.
Jesus talked about the birds in the Sermon on the Mount. See Matthew 5, KJV.
Behold the fowls of the air [birds]: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? …
O ye of little faith?
Therefore, take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
As I sat in my “Mind Palace” praying and troubled on a hot, August day, I tried to still my mind, but there were too many distractions, most notable and annoying of which were the myriad minions of mechanized yard equipment encircling me and threatening to overrun my position like one of Rommel’s Panzer Divisions.
Eventually, I closed my eyes, stopped the ears of my mind, and found myself soaring in space as is frequently the case when I search for the “Mind Palace.” This time, though, I buzzed around much like an incessant house fly. There, God /Jesus sat in His accustomed place in a full lotus position, hanging effortlessly above the Earth. I, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to land beside Him. I was too much vexed with the world.
As I buzzed around compulsively darting, diving and climbing near the Lord, a flutter of sparrows bore down on me like airport birds zooming into a jet’s engines. (OK, birds don’t fly in space, I get it, it’s a metaphor. Indulge me.)
I “ducked” to avoid a collision, myself, narrowly missing being sucked into their wake. Cocking his head to the left and staring at me for a minute, God /Jesus broke the verbal silence, “Stop for a moment and watch the birds. Unstop your ears and listen to their chipping. I’m going to show you something, and there’s something you need to hear.” In a moment, the birds were (was?) all my mind could see, and gone was the rumble of the Afrikakorps. At that, God explained the bird’s faith in flying and how it was related to my faith and our faith or lack thereof.
“The way a bird exercises his faith in flying is by flying,” He began, “The way a human exercises his/her faith, grows his faith, proves her faith is to use ‘faith’ as a verb, a transitive verb.” (Really, you’re going English-major on me?)
Merriam Webster, as quoted by Marissa Shrock in Faith as a Verb, (marissashrick.com) states that “the use of ‘faith’ as a transitive verb… is archaic.” Ms. Shrock advocates the use of this archaism as it applies to one’s faith in God. I concur. To use “faith” in its modern sense makes the word assume a passive state. Nothing about faith should be passive. “To faith” God is the most active verb I know.
God continued, “I know that you look at the world and don’t think that it’s going to get any better. You have decided that you will die, and the world will be no better – News flash, You’re right. Mankind left alone will only dissolve into chaos. That’s a law both of physics and sociology.”
“But here’s the difference. On a day certain to Me, though not to you, I, even I, will return, in living color, and I will make all things new – all things. Every person will be in the right relationship with me. Every person will be in the right relationship with every other person. Every person will be in the right relationship with the world around and the environment, and the world will be renewed – not ‘Heaven on Earth,’ but a New Earth on Earth.
This new Earth will be populated by people who faith me: black and white, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, gay and straight, (did I omit any categorical pairs?) – one Lord, one faith, one baptism – one family, the Family of God.”
“You will see it then, and it will be beyond wonder, beyond anything you expected, even beyond anything you suspected. You can believe that, rely on it, take it to the bank. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it already, and it is finished.”
“But, Lord,” I said, “That’s then, this is now. How do I have that kind of faith in the now?”
“I know,” He agreed, “that’s then, and this is now. But, don’t get confused by the wording. You should not have faith in the now, that’s the trouble. You try to have faith in the now and it’s not worthy of your faith because it is broken as you are broken. In the now, put your faith in the then, what theologians would call the Not Yet. When you get to the Not Yet, you won’t need faith anymore because the Not Yet will be the reality that you can see. The Not Yet will be the now – then”
“In the now, just faith Me. The Not Yet is a reality already, but for you, it is a faith reality. If you faith Me in the now, I will take you to the Not Yet that will be the new now.”
“And, that’s only half the story. I didn’t put you in the now to worry about the now or to worry why the now is not the Not Yet. In this reality, it isn’t. Instead, I put you in the now to faith me and to pass on the vision of the Not Yet to the people of the now.” That’s your ‘ongoing mission.”
“The best part of this is that in ‘flying’ in the now, like a bird to your mission, you must faith Me if you’re going to succeed. In faithing Me, you also get to know the real Me, not the cardboard, cutout, standup of me you might find in a Japanese baseball stadium, but the real Who I Am.”
Exasperated, I lamented, “OK, now I’m temporally lost.”
“No,” He reassured me, “you’re not ‘lost’ in the now, you’re actually ‘found’ in the now as well as in the Not Yet. Theologians would call that ‘saved.’ Your problem is that you haven’t moved past ‘saved’ in the now. You have faithed me for the Not Yet but not for the now. It’s the same faith, only different operations of it. I want you to know the ‘both’ of it now so you can know Me in the now as well as in the Not Yet.”
Still confused, I offered, “Could you make this explanation any harder?”
“Sure,” He responded, “I could write it in Greek. In fact, I already did.”
“OK, I surrender, press on,” feebly I replied.
“Good job,” He reassured and resumed, “Surrender – give up. As I was saying, the bird faiths that he can fly in the now. In response to that faith, he flies. He doesn’t think about flying; he doesn’t play ‘what if I can fly?’ He goes about his business. You see, flying is not the main thing for a bird. Sure, it’s great that I made him to fly. But I made him to fly so that he could accomplish what I designed him to do. In doing what I designed Him to do, the bird is fulfilled – not in flying, but in doing what flying enabled him to do.”
“So it is with faith. It’s pretty simple. My plan for you is that you live your life as a Christian in the now, that you faith me in the now, that you do what I have for you to do in the now, and that you don’t worry about the rest of the stuff like the not yet. If I made it so a bird can fly and fulfill my purpose for him. How much more have I made you so that you can likewise “fly” in the now and accomplish my purpose for you in the now and the Not Yet? It’s a ‘no brainer.”
(Good thing that this thought was a “no brainer,” because, in the now, my brain was not yet.)
So let it be written, so let it be done.
johnthebaptist15 