Posted Monday 2 June 2008
As I write this I am preparing to go off to General Synod in Edinburgh, writes the Rev Canon Jeanette Jenkins.
My mind is preoccupied with mundane matters. What will the weather be like and so what clothes will I need? Will the hotel be comfortable and clean? Have I understood correctly the issues being raised in the sheaves of paper I have read through? And when the time comes will I be able to vote correctly for the benefit of all our people?
It’s a worrying time, yet in Matthew 6.24 onward, Jesus tells not to worry. Instead we are to have faith and trust in God, who supplies all our needs.
So, what is faith? Is faith the same as belief or hope? Or is there a difference? I believe that there is but I also believe that you cannot have belief or hope without having faith.
One of my favourite passages is from Hebrews 11-12, particularly chapter 11, verse 1: ‘To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.’
Faith is intangible, illogical, but enables us to keep going, to pursue our dreams and believe that they can be achieved.
Faith is indeed when we put our hand in the hand of God and step out into the unknown, trusting in him to lead us on the right path, so that we stop worrying about the future and enjoy the present.
Faith and trust go together and I often wonder why it seems so hard today for people to have faith in what we cannot see. So much of today’s technology is, for me anyway, dependent on blind faith. We walk into a room, press a switch and a light comes on, or the television. And even more baffling are the computer and the mobile phone.
I find it incredible that words, pictures and sounds can be transmitted through the ether in seconds. I don’t understand it but I accept that it works. Isn’t that faith?
Faith is a gift from God and I constantly thank him for it.
So I shall stop worrying and go to Edinburgh trusting that he will guide me (and all the representatives) to say and do at the right time that which will further his kingdom here on earth.
Category: Thought for the Month
