Tamed

As a small child, I loved Christmas. I loved everything about it, the tree, the lights, the decorations that were everywhere in our house. I especially loved Santa Claus. When it came to him, I was all in. As my mother often said, I was a "true believer" when it came to Santa.

One of my earliest Christmas memories was a Christmas Eve when, going to bed, my grandmother said to me, "Make sure you listen for his sleigh bells when he lands on the roof." I tried, lying awake for as long as I could. I fell asleep, but I did so with full belief that what my grandmother had said would happen. She'd told me so, and she wouldn't lie. I knew he'd come, reindeer, sleigh, bells, and all.

I can smile at all that now. Why would Santa land on the roof, since we had no chimney? How would he get down if he did? Those thoughts never entered my 5 year old mind. I believed. With all my heart, I believed. Children find it easy to believe the impossible. Everything about Santa, his covering the entire earth in one night, his knowing exactly where each child was and what they wanted and how they'd been behaving, was an impossibility. But it wasn't an impossibility to a child who was simply willing to believe in him.

Heidi Baker is a woman ministering mostly in Africa and South America. She and her husband have detailed countless miracles of salvation and healing. She once said, "All children believe God can do miracles until some adult tells them He can't." In the places where she and her husband ministered, the people He sent her were not too "sophisticated," too educated, or too logical to believe in a miracle-working God. The Bakers simply told them of a God of miracles and they, gasp, BELIEVED in Him.

We all come to the place where we realize Santa Claus isn't real. At some point, someone tells us this reality. Has someone done the same when it comes to the miracle working God of the Bible? Has someone convinced us that He just doesn't move in that way anymore? That He no longer makes the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to rise. Not literally anyway. 

In His Word He says, "I am the God who heals you." Yet who is it we first turn to in sickness? The Father or the Doctor? In His Word we read how Jesus fed 5000 with just a few loaves and fishes, yet how much sleep have we lost, how many anxiety driven days have we had where we were consumed with how we would make it through the week? Perhaps we once believed in a God who could do anything, would do anything, just as He promised, but somehow, other voices started to be listened to. We needed to be more realistic in our faith lives. Yes, He did work like that in New Testament times, but we shouldn't expect such works now. He's taken on a more reserved role. We don't so much say that as we live it. We have domesticated, tamed, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Have you still the faith of a child, or has your faith been tamed? Have you somehow "caged" the Lion that is Jesus Christ? Are you ready for Him, along with your faith, to be unleashed once more? Are you ready to be a child again in your faith, living for a God who has no limitations? He has told us that He is such a Father, that Christ is such a Savior, that the Holy Spirit is such a mighty presence. He has told us. Why don't we believe Him? Will we believe Him now?

Blessings,

Pastor O