What's it mean to be a person of simple faith? At first glance I believe most of us think it implies someone who doesn't really wrestle with a lot of the complexities of what the journey of faith is all about. They just believe it and never really trouble themselves about such things. Secretly, I think we look at such folks as being a little shallow. They've not wrestled and questioned like we have. They're not the deep spiritual thinkers like we are. We admire them, but we're too sophisticated to be like them. If that's our view, how sad and ignorant we truly are.
The pathway to such a faith, such a relationship with Him is anything but simple. It is deeply complex, filled with twists and turns, wounds and disappointments, giants, mountains, and adversaries galore. In the midst of the supposed simplicity stands the cross. No journey of faith can bypass it. It confronts every faith traveler. We will either embrace it and our death to self, or flee it and hold to our own self-rule. To take the latter route opens the door on a life full of complications and confusion. Simple faith is now beyond our grasp.
The cross gives birth to simple faith by teaching us a lesson that evades our flesh. in Christ, up is down and down is up. We talk of being believers who turn the world upside down, but in the American church, while we can excel at upsetting people for all the wrong reasons, we don't seem to be turning much of the world kingdoms on their head. We're missing the reality that before He can turn the world upside down through us, He must turn our world's upside down within us. This happens at the cross, and we reach the cross through the desert that His Holy Spirit leads us through.
Matthew 4:1 reads, "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert." Some translations use "driven" in place of "led." We recoil at that, but oftentimes, the only way we'll venture into the desert He seeks to bring us to is if He, in His fatherly way, "drives" us there.
The word "desert" is defined as, "A lonely place. An uninhabited region." It is lonely, but not uninhabited. We are there and He is there with us. In the desert He means to accomplish His Kingdom work within us. That's not what we're seeking. Our usual first response is to plead for Him to get us out. He never seems in a hurry to do that. We see the desert as our enemy...and it is....to our flesh. Jesus saw it as His friend. I'm learning ever more deeply that until I learn to see my deserts in that way as well, I'll remain there. In the desert He reveals me to myself, and Himself to me. He'll bring us to His appointed oasis in these deserts, and they'll always be at the perfect time. Yet the desert remains....and so does His companionship. In the desert we discover who He really is. Alicia Britt Chole, in her book Anonymous asks, "What grows in our hidden (desert) seasons? An accurate portrait of God."
When your only company, your only audience in the desert is Him, real knowledge and intimacy is born. The desert opens our eyes to who He is. In the desert, our character is transformed and we begin to look more and more like Him. Fruit of the Spirit is cultivated and grown through the only available water to be found; His Water of Life. All this will happen if we will surrender all the things that have made our walk with Him so complex and difficult. So crooked and confusing. All things become simpler, clearer, straighter. We have learned who He is, and we trust Him....completely. We enter into the desert living mostly separate from Him. We come out living deeply in Him. We go in thinking we're free while actually we're captive to so many things. We come out completely owned by Him and completely free in Him.
This is the pathway to simple faith which isn't simple at all. It's a hard won faith that simply takes Him at His Word. All of His Word. Would you walk in it? You'll reach it only by way of the cross and the desert. Both have to be embraced. Both lead to His life of abundance. You may look everywhere for another way, but there is no other way. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Blessings,
Pastor O
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