Reckless Love

Many, if not all, of us are aware of someone who is involved in a relationship where we frankly don’t understand the motivation of one of the parties toward the other. There is the devoted party that we all can sympathize with that seems to display an extraordinary patience and commitment to the other, meanwhile the other seems intent on abusing that love and compassion. We sit in amazement at how the lover can be so tolerant and offer opportunity after opportunity toward the other. We talk with other friends and maybe even plan an 'intervention' where we intend to confront our naive friend regarding the recalcitrant object of their affection. However, no matter what we do, we cannot convince the person of their naivety and persuade them to move on and devote their love to a more deserving subject.

This leads us to a discussion of what “love” is, and what is the motivation for love? Scripture gives us many attributes of love: patience, kindness, protection, trusting, hoping, and persevering are all enumerated in 1 Corinthians 13. All of these are excellent attributes and some may appear to bolster the side of our forlorn lover from above. Surely they are demonstrating perseverance and hope in offering opportunities to their wayward interest. However, I offer that the attributes of love, much like the attributes of God, do little to clearly define what we are talking about. They don’t do justice to providing a definition because they are more a result of what we are describing than what it is that is being described. The river does not describe the clear mountain streams from which it proceeds, even though it seems to be a greater object collectively than the individual streams.

Instead of the attributes that proceed from love, can we perceive that there are attributes or qualities that proceed into love? Perhaps one such quality is vulnerability or maybe risk. Why vulnerability? If vulnerability is a willingness to at least in some small manner relax our personal defenses and protections toward another, then perhaps can it be offered as an inherent quality of love? If I am willing to love, then I am making some kind of tacit commitment that could allow another person to accept or reject that love. It seems that within that relaxation I am taking a small measure of the risk of rejection.

As each of us has at least some familiarity with that person who has made themselves vulnerable to another and has been taken advantage of in that situation, we can contemplate from within that context what reckless love is. Reckless as defined by Merriam-Webster is marked by lack of proper caution : careless of consequences. There might be many reasons why a person would be willing to forgo customary caution and accept the vulnerability of recklessly loving someone.

It is within this context that we perhaps get our first insight into the recklessness of God's love. God expresses a love to His creation in a manner that is clearly beyond a reasonable calling. We see throughout the Old Testament time and again where God provides for the needs of Israel and is yet rejected after each turn. Then, when the plight of Israel seems so dark, God provides for the needs of Israel through miraculous circumstances to again meet their most basic needs such as the provision for manna or in providing streams of water from the Rock at Horeb while they wondered in the desert.

I believe that the actions of God in the Old Testament are completely consistent with the love of a parent for a lost child. This concept of God as a Father is introduced by Jesus as a young boy in the temple. When separated from Mary and Joseph on a trip to Jerusalem, Jesus upon being reunited with his parents responds to the question of where he was by replying in Luke 2, “about my father’s business.” This view as Father becomes central to understanding the Old Testament actions of God within the context of the New Testament  — that of a Father to a child. This view provides us with some sense of understanding toward the reckless love of the Father.

We may have sympathy for the parent that continues to extend love to the child in spite of their rejection. The parental bond is strong and will so often survive the most egregious of circumstances intact and does not make us question as much as elicit our sympathy. Thus from the perspective of the Father, we can comprehend why God relentlessly pursues man to restore the relationship, how many of us have done or would do the same to restore a relationship with our own progeny?

If we only view God as the Father, we don’t seem to have a complete view of the fullness of God. The theology of the trinity exists not to make sense of the statements of Christ in the New Testament, but, because the truth that was revealed to the apostles and early Christians formed the basis from which we speak of a doctrine of the trinity. To come to a more complete realization of the nature of God’s relationship to man, we may need to look beyond the Old Testament and “Father” toward the images presented within the context of the new covenant.

One of the most common illustrations found in the New Testament is that of the bridegroom and the bride. With Jesus being placed in analogies as the bridegroom, we have to come to grip with the analogy from within the context of the Jewish society that Jesus born into. While I don’t intend to provide a in-depth discussion of the Jewish marriage customs common in the first century, I think it is an area that one would really benefit greatly from studying, especially in regards to the covenant, betrothal, and consummation of marriage. What is very important and needs to be considered is that the marriage covenant of Jesus illustrations differs in the manner in which we encounter and experience the love of God. This context of the bride/bridegroom revives the reckless or reckless manner of God’s love. It is wholly appropriate to view the love of the Father as parental in context. That does not seem to be so appropriate in regards to the love of Jesus which seems to suggest a deeper, more physically intimate relationship of love than from within a parental context.

It is within the love of God from the context presented by Jesus that we arrive at the the truly reckless aspects of the love of God. I think the best picture of that love is actually found within the Old Testament book of Hosea. Most of us are familiar with the story of Hosea and his marriage to the harlot Gomer. Hosea is believed to be the first prophet of the bible to use marriage as a metaphor for the relationship of God to his people, and it is difficult to imagine a worse picture of a “healthy” relationship. Gomer is relentlessly adulterous — so much like Israel of the old testament and even many today who would take the name of our bridegroom Jesus as Christians–”those of Christ”–yet hesitate to remain faithful to that name.

Within this context we confront the love of God that is reckless. This love that would test many of us in observing a friend that would devote such love to the pursuit of another. This love, perfect not in its acceptance but in its offering. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler was a 20th-century Jewish rabbi who developed the theme that the philosophy of Jewish love is “giving without expectation to take.” I don’t think any picture paints the recklessness of God’s love more beautifully than that. Love that is offered not in any expectation of a return, but only from within the expectation of loving more, of giving more, of devoting self so much more to perfecting the offering of that very love.

Within this context, God never pauses to count the cost. He never pauses to question whether the payment has exceeded the ability of the purchased to fulfill the motivation for the purchase. This can only be accomplished when the lover is assured of the intrinsic value of the object of their love. God is capable of surveying His position and recklessly pouring himself more fully into His loving devotion rather than withdrawing to reconsider His alternatives. In fact, God never presents that there could be an alternative. From His first disappointment in the Garden of Eden, He seems bent to the task of restoring the relationship at all costs, even at the cost of offering himself up as a sacrifice. This is reckless love! This is love that is brazen in its pursuit of acceptance. This is love that cries out across the expanse of an eternal heart for satisfaction.

Loneliness

In John 5, we read the story of the man at the pool in Bethesda. The pools at Bethesda were thought

to be a place where the spirit of the Lord moved and touched people. There was a belief that when the water stirred, it signified the presence of an angel of the Lord and whoever stepped into the water first would be healed. In this story, we find a man who has been ill for 38 years. How long precisely he had waited at the pool is unknown -- but we are told that when Jesus saw him he knew he had been there a long time.

What Jesus inquires of the man is interesting. He asks this person -- who in faith and maybe in desperation has come to this well for healing a simple question, "Do you wish to get well?" There may be no other point in the bible where Jesus seems to ask such a simple, seemingly inane question that is so deep. Here is this man who apparently has extremely limited mobility -- who says no one will help him into the waters -- and Jesus says to him, "Hey, do you want to get well?" I can only envision the man sitting there thinking something like, "nope, I like getting the special parking spaces -- here is your sign."

What is interesting is the response of the man, "Sir, I have no one to help me into the waters." Not, "I want to be well" or "It is my hearts desire", but -- "I have no one." What was the greatest need of this man? Healing of his physical infirmity, or healing of his spiritual loneliness? Maybe what is most amazing, he was saying it to the one person that could answer both!

Jesus as we know healed the man! He commanded him to take up his pallet and walk. Want to know how smart the guy was? Very! When Jesus commanded him to take up his pallet and walk -- that is what he did. Sadly, there were those around who decided not to be amazed at the healing of the man -- and the fact that Jesus simply provided comfort to a man in need someone to help him. They immediately questioned him as to why he was carrying his pallet on the sabbath in violation of the law! Let's not worry how the lame can be made whole they say -- you are not honoring the sabbath. Indeed, he was honoring not the sabbath, which Christ says if for man -- he was doing the very will of God.

So, what was the greatest suffering of the man? Was it his physical problem or his loneliness which is demonstrated in his lack of someone to help him? I think the loneliness is the greatest need. Could he have been healed if he had been first to the pool when it stirred? Thirty-eight years...I wonder...

I wonder if Jesus right now was to ask me, "Do you want to be well?" What would he be asking me? Would he be saying, "You hurt physically, I can make you better." Maybe he would be saying, "You hurt emotionally, can I free you of that burden?" What I think lies in the center of both questions is a simple, "So, what if?" What does it mean to me if he heals me?

Let's unpack this in another way. Ever know someone who has a burden for someone. What about the wife who prays every Sunday for her unrepentant, alcoholic, abusive husband? Every Sunday we marvel at how she can continue on. Then, behold, a miracle! A transformation, and a changed life! The husband is saved.

Ever see what sometimes happens next? The wife, who prayed so diligently for the husband is now faced with a removal of her burden. However, instead of rejoicing at their partner's salvation -- they now must face the truth that has been there all along -- how do they deal without the dysfunction? Sadly some can't.

We have become so used to dysfunction. It is not that we simply work around it -- we work with it. It is our crutch, our excuse. It enables us. When Jesus looked at the man, and us, he says, "Can you deal with what comes next?" In a world that cries out for love -- can we put our own love for self aside and love others? Can I cease to dwell on my limitations and grasp His infinite possibilities?

So, to the heart of the question -- if God removed our crutch, on what would we lean -- him? Would we dare to take up our cross and walk as he said in Mark 8:34? Would we be willing to suffer for people as Christ suffered for them?

In a world that is so crowded, how can we let others feel so alone? How can we sit in our homes and not just feel sorry for people? How can we move from just loving the world to seriously getting out and caring for the world. My love is not enough -- my tears are not enough -- my Jesus is. It has been said that people don't care until they know how much you care -- how do we demonstrate the love of Christ to a lost and dying world? How do we show a lonely world that when the question was asked of God, he spread his arms wide and said, "This much." Telling them isn't enough -- we need to show them.

So, if Jesus looks at me and says, "Do you want to be well?" --- what would I say?

Shadows of Evil

Ever pondered what is a shadow?  I am almost afraid to admit I have.  Maybe I should not admit that to freely.  Then again, some who know me may say that is probably one of the least wastes of my time I have engaged in.  Recently I was sitting on a plane and happened to look out the window.  It was interesting because it was a cloudy day, yet the sun was shining.  I happened to look down and the shadow of a cloud could clearly be seen upon the ground beneath me.  Interesting to stop and think about for a second:  what is a shadow?

It is probably safe to assume that most of us have seen shadows.  Even the other day, I noticed our dog, Rolo seeking a shadow to stand in on a hot day.  The shadow afforded by a tree, provided a brief reprieve for Rolo from a south Alabama sun that was beginning to give a taste of things to come.  It struck me that in the case of the tree’s shadow, we actually even give it a unique name–shade.

So, back to the central question concerning the existence of shadows.  A shadow is not really a thing, instead it is the actual lack of something–light.  Maybe to even raise the concern of my friends a little more, I have even considered whether light or dark truly exist.  Theology and cosmology both seem to agree that darkness preexisted light in our universe.  However, the source of the light preexisted the darkness.  So dark really seems to be the absence of light.  I think this could be summarized that darkness has no ontological status — darkness as a thing does not exist.

That may or may not be new information for everyone.  Some may still be wondering what “ontological” even means.  Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t.  As Greg Koukl says, ontology deals with the nature of existence.  If something exists, like myself, then I have ontological status.
A shadow does not exist.  Instead, it is simply the absence of light.  If we took away the light, the shadow itself would be replaced by darkness.  Absent the light, a shadow cannot exist.
So, how about the title, “Shadows of Evil”?  What I have also pondered is the existence of evil.  However, I think a shadow shares certain aspects with evil, neither have an ontological status.  Evil does not really exist in separation.  If you look around the universe, you cannot find anything that would be called evil.  Evil cannot adhere itself to another object and impart anything.  Instead, evil is the absence of good.  Just like we don’t know a shadow without light, we don’t really know evil without good.

The problem of evil is perhaps one of the most simple questions that plagues people when they consider whether God exists.  Even if they would perhaps be contemplating whether God exists, it seems that with the prevalence of evil in the world that we see, how can a benevolent God exist?  Fair question.

When we read Genesis 1, there are numerous places where we read that God said creation was “Good”.  It takes quite a while for evil to appear on the scene.  We get all the way to Genesis 2:9, which if you were to be open to the concept of evolution, is probably a period marked by billions of years…  Even if you want to hold to a literalist view of Genesis, it takes a whole chapter, everything has been created before it makes its first appearance.  You can say that it doesn’t appear in creation until creation is storied as a narrative which is the sense of Genesis 2:9.  We don’t see evil as a condition of man (Genesis 3 only says man now possessed the knowledge of the distinction between good and evil) until chapter 6.  So evil takes its time getting out.

It has been said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  I would offer that while I agree with that, I also think that we can’t lose perspective that it is the actions of other men that are the cause of evil.  You see, God didn’t create evil.  He created good.  It is when Good is absent that evil can be observed.  Just as when the light is blocked we see the shadow, when good is absent we can see evil.  Ravi Zacharias has offered that evil is when a thing does not do that which it was created to do–when it fails it’s purpose.  I like that definition.

So when we want to raise the objection about the existence of God based on the problem of evil, we might do well to stop and question ourselves regarding how we have not fulfilled our purpose.  Even absent a belief in God, I think most people would still say that they have at times acted in a way that they knew was not good.  They have obscured the good they knew to be and in its absence allowed existence to evil.  Maybe it is not a great evil, maybe just a small thing.  Maybe calling it an evil is almost hyperbolic.  Still, when we compare our actions to perfection, then it seems that it does not take a great departure from good to really give substance to evil.

In Luke 18:19, Jesus asked the young man why he called him good?  Jesus replied that only one was good, and that was God.  I have also heard Ravi explain an answer he gave on an exam he had to take for his denominational credentials.  The question that was asked was something like, “God is perfect, explain.”  As Ravi relates the story, the space for the answer was brief, “For only by being brief, could one hope to avoid heresy!” he quipped.  The beauty of his response was along the line that, “Every being besides God finds the reason for their existence externally.  God, is the only being that exists independent of any other cause.  In this, God is perfect.”  When even the best of us are compared to His perfection, the gulf can never be little.

I find it interesting that the Hebrews had a concept of light as the ideal.  Scripture tells us we are called to be the light of the world (Matthew 5).  If we are the light of the world, then we can deny the existence of shadows.  If we live as the light, we can also deny existence to evil.  This seems a high calling.  It can’t be done by chance.  Albert Einstein once said that ““Only a life lived for others is worth living”.  When questioned about the greatest commandment, Christ gave two.  “He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 10)
Ravi Zacharias tells a story of a young father that is asked by his daughter why her Mother died.

He spoke of a child who lost her mother and asked her dad ‘If Jesus died on the cross for our sins, why did mommy have to die?’ The heartrending question left her father at loss for words. Later when they were driving down, the father noticed a huge truck traveling alongside. He noticed the shadow of the truck and asked the little girl to have a look at it. He then asked her, ‘If you were to be run over by either the truck or its shadow, which one would you choose?’ The daughter replied, ‘the shadow daddy, because the shadow wouldn’t hurt’. The father smiled and replied, ‘When Jesus died on the cross, the truck of God’s judgment went over Him, so the death we go through is only the shadow of death.’      quoted from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/words-of-encouragement-from-the-bible.html

 Shadows can be powerful, not for the physical effects they have but what their presence signifies is lacking.  May there never more be a shadow upon my spirit because of the absence of God.  May the Spirit indwell and cause such an explosion of light that no shadow can take hold.  May I live out that light in a world that cries out for darkness to recede.

Face Beside the Veteran

Several years ago I participated in a ceremony to honor a group of veterans. These guys were all very deserving and all very humble about their service — some of their stories were pretty amazing. While I stood at the front, and the service members were being recognized amid a lot of celebration and ceremony, my gaze was drawn to the face of a wife of one of the veterans. I will never forget looking at the face of that wife and seeing the tears in her eyes that quickly pooled and ran down her face. 

There are many women that were and are like her.  Women who stayed home, cared for the children, often alone without family or friends who were far away. They took the meager paycheck of a service member and paid the bills. Volunteered in schools, churches, and many other places in the community. When children not old enough to understand asked the inevitable question of when Daddy would be coming home, she quieted their restless hearts never exposing the same question and fears in her heart. Sometimes she sat with children far too young to even fully grasp the absence of their father and shared with them pictures of a father that they did not yet even know. Then at night, when it was far too quiet and lonely for one so tired, I wonder how often she prayed out to God for her husband who was thousands of miles away and hope that her quiet sobs would not awaken the young. 

While I am sure almost all eyes were on those we were honoring, and deservedly so, my eyes could not turn from that face and the intense pride and love that was evident there. As she stood she grasped the hand of her loved one and held that which had been denied to her so many long and sleepless nights. Yet, she asked no remembrance, she coveted no glory. She was content that by her side was her true love and in our honoring him she demonstrated such sincere pride. This lady became the face I see when I think of veterans.

Communition... an Idea but not a word.

This past Sunday, we celebrated Communion at church.  Over the past few years, Communion, or the Lord’s Table as we sometimes call it, has taken on a wholly new meaning in my life.  I find that Dr. NT Wright expresses one aspect of of communion so well when he said:

“The Eucharist is not just about “me and my salvation.” It is a necessity, a part of what enables us to be God’s new creation people. We taste the new creation on our tongues, in our lips, in our mouths, in our bodies, so that we can go out and do the kind of work in the world that helps bring in the kingdom, God’s new creation.” See here.

This sets the idea of only an individual symbolic act on its edge and challenges us to reflect on the real presence of God in the life of the church.  We tend to view communion as an individual act, but we were told to do it as a gathered people.  We shouldn’t lose the idea of communion being something more than thanks just about me and God.  It is perhaps something that I shouldn’t hold too tightly as individualistic.  Instead, it is something we celebrate as a community of believers gathered together.  In that context, to reduce it down to an individual act seems inconsistent with its institution and the Pauline references/directives.  We need to recapture the idea of Communion as a communal act whereby we gather to worship God in the act of yesterday and promises of tomorrow through our eating and drinking together in the now.


So, I am going to coin a new word, not for usage but for its idea.  That word is an amalgamation of the Body of Christ (the Church) and the body and blood of His gift to us -- communition...  Let's join together in celebrating His grace.

Apologetics Can't Save You

The Christian community goes by many names, sometimes we are called the church, the Bride of Christ, early in our history we were called the followers of the Way.  One name that we really never use to refer to ourselves by is ‘family’.  However, it is one of the names we most often live up to, unfortunately, it is as a dysfunctional family.  Seldom does any family take such joy at attacking their own as the Christian family.  Unlike most highly dysfunctional families we seem to take the greatest joy in airing our differences in the most public of ways.  Maybe that is a good thing.  The non-Christian community surely can’t accuse us of hiding behind doors to work out our issues (although I wish more idifferences were worked out instead of the constant festering that we end up with).

Apologetics can be defined as reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.  Specifically, Christian apologetics use a variety of methods to defend the tenets of the Christian faith.

Some Christians take issue with any idea that reason can be a tool utilized by Christians.  However, I feel this is based on a faulty view of apologetics as well as salvation.  A very common argument that is raised is “has anyone ever been saved by apologetics.”

The answer to that question is an unequivocal and emphatic, “NO”. I am not aware of any person that has ever been saved through apologetics. Then again, I am not aware of anyone that has ever been saved through discipleship, evangelism, prayer, or any other category of works. We are by grace saved through faith. The efficacious work of salvation was done by Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. So, apart from Him, we are not saved by any work of man (apologetics, evangelism, prayer, etc).

I am actively involved in an apologetics ministry — so, obviously I will be a proponent of the discipline. I discovered the discipline of apologetics several years ago when I was challenged by an atheist about my beliefs.  I was being challenged as we find in 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”.

Are there bad examples of apologists? Yes. I probably initially served as a bad example of an apologist. I was primarily focused on winning the argument. It was actually because of a statement Greg Kouklmod Stand To Reason  made that I was became aware of the specific harm that attitude was causing. Greg says in his book, “Tactics” that we should be involved in a dialogue not to win an argument but to win a brother/sister. If at the end of my part in the discussion a person is unwilling to consider the truth of the gospel because of an additional offense that I have attached to it by my method, then I have offended the gospel. Let’s be realistic, the gospel is offensive to the non-believer, let’s not add to that by our poor presentation of it.

If the gospel is true, then the non-believer has to deal with their response to that truth, no matter how offensive that truth may seem. But, if they can choose to not respond because I am a jerk, then I have added unnecessarily to the offense of the gospel.

Let me expand that a bit more — are there bad example of other areas of our faith — say evangelism? Do the members of the Westboro Baptist Church provide a bad example of evangelism when they protest at the death of a US servicemember? We all recognize the bad practitioners of the discipline, yet we still can separate that from the overall call to evangelism that we each have. We strive to practice good evangelism, we should strive to practice good apologetics.

Sometimes apologetics may be focused on the validity of rational arguments, but they may also be applicable to helping someone deal with emotional issues. Unfortunately, in many of our churches we have left the mind outside the sanctuary and decided that we will only deal with the emotional side of faith. There are numerous problems with this approach (just as there are with a rationalistic/head only approach some equate to apologetics).

It is time we bring the mind back into the church.  We need to understand apologetics as a call to both evangelism and discipleship.  We need to be true to the examples of the apostles in presenting clear and cogent reasons for theor faith. And always doing so in a manner that brings honor to Christ as our reason and Truth! 

Maybe it is time for those who would attack apologetics to  consider that we can’t be true to 1 Peter 3:15 nor the call of Christ on our lives if we don’t engage the mind and that apologetics provides an avenue to reach yet another demographic in our culture.  We need to quit acting so much like that really dysfunctional family we sometimes are and maybe realizing that working together might just allow us to celebrate some bigger reunions.

Abandoning Faith

After many years I have made a decision.  I am abandoning faith.  Faith doesn't do anything for me.  It leaves me with this lost and empty feeling.  I understand many may cling to it, but that is not something I can do with any sincerity.  As I read through many articles and publications, I just can no longer identify with the word as it is used by so many today.  Faith for me has travelled the same path that noscrible travelled so long ago - namely of being a lost word.   For those not aware, noscrible went out of vogue back in the mid-1600's.  The term meant knowable or well known.  So, in a sentence it would have appeared as:  It is noscrible that no amount of training can make up for experience in the field.

I came to this realization about the word faith through listening to so many who have adopted usage of the word which is unfamiliar to my own experience.  For many, faith is a belief that is not based upon proof or evidence.  Instead faith is something that simply seems to represent a deep desire or wish.  I first noticed this most prevalent among atheists.  They would dismiss Christian theology saying that it was based upon faith in a fairy tale becoming true.  That wasn't so hard for me to dismiss, they were simply exhibiting their own wishful thinking upon others.  Their usage didn't differ too much from what Dictionary.com offers as a definition for faith:

2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

That alone would not have been enough for me to abandon faith.  However, I then began to see a disturbing trend among my believing friends.  They would use faith in a not so dissimilar method.  Faith was just something you had to have.  When you came to the end of reason, you just had to have faith.  The question that crept into my mind was "faith in what"?

I find it impossible to develop a faith in something that is unsupported by evidence or proof.  I can't on, whim just believe in something that has no real support.  To me, that would be like having faith that I will win the lottery but not having a ticket in my possession to said lottery.

A personal accomplishment of which I am personally proud was the earning of my parachutist's badge or "wings".  These wings were earned through the satisfaction of the requirements set forth by the United States Army Airborne School based in Ft. Benning, GA.  Three weeks of intensive learning and physical fitness.  It culminated in the exiting of an aircraft while in flight on five successive attempts.  This is affectionately known as "Jump Week".  The exits occur under a small variety of conditions, hollywood (meaning simple rig of main and reserve), combat (a weapon case strapped to your leg and a rucksack that ends up dangling under you on descent), and night time (occurring during darkness -- which must be distinguished from the other jumps where it is dark because you clinch your eyes tightly shut).  In my case, we got to avoid the night jump because of anticipated bad weather!

Jumping out of an inflight aircraft is something that should naturally be hard to do.  Someone believing they can fly should seriously be evaluated for psychiatric counseling.  However, the first two weeks of jump school are designed to instill within you a confidence in the equipment and techniques employed.  You learn how to don the equipment, preflight jump routines (which includes that all important step of connecting your static line to the cable), exiting the aircraft, checking for the proper deployment of the main, descent technique, then the all important Parachute Landing Fall (PLF) which is designed to bring you safely (though not gently) into contact with Terra Firma.  An improperly executed PLF can result in executing a Mars-lander type landing without the benefit of the large airbags.  This is neither comfortable nor desirable.

After completing the two weeks of ground training, we were ready for jump week.  From the donning of equipment to the gathering of our parachute up after a successful PLF, each move was practiced and performed countless times.  Was there an adrenaline rush that accompanied our preparations for our first jump?  Oh yeah!  Again, we were getting ready to do something unnatural.  However, we also were placing our trust in equipment and techniques that had been successfully tested time and again.  After all the preparation, I stood in an inflight aircraft with my static line firmly secured on the jump cable.  When my time came, I simply did what I had practiced what seemed to have been 1,000 times.

The pinning of wings

Flinging yourself into space is somewhat exhilarating.  Flying in an aircraft that is about 1,800 feet in the air one second, then the next hurtling away from the aircraft is a really different experience.  One moment the noise of a C-141 Starlifter gives way to the rush of wind as your body tenses into it, eyes firmly closed (personally simulating a night jump) and your hands gripping your reserve parachute (because there is nothing else to do with them).  The next sound you are aware of is that wonderful pop of nylon as the static line deploys your main!  There is that initial thought of "hey, this works."  Which is immediately followed by the thought, "If I didn't think it worked, why did I jump?"  But, I did think it worked.  It had been proven time and again.  I wasn't making a "leap of faith", I was making a jump with confidence in what had been proven.

What does this do with my abandoning faith?  By common usage, I did not possess faith in the equipment and techniques of the Airborne School.  What I possessed was something proven by time and experience -- it was trust.  So, it would be incorrect to say I had faith in my equipment and training, in today's usage I would more accurately say that I had trust in the equipment and training.  Faith as a word in usage today is inadequate.  So, I am abandoning faith as inadequate to the task.

That brings me to another important use of the word trust.  I trust in God.  This trust is based on my studying of scriptures and my own personal experiences.  Just as I found a parachute was adequate to returning me safely to the ground, I have learned that I can trust in the promises of God as recorded in scripture.  This is based on a historical examination of the texts based on techniques that have been applied to many other documents across the ages.  It is based upon the same standards that I would apply to any other report of events that were presented to me.

You see, it is not that I have lost my faith in God, it is that I find faith inadequate again to the task based on modern day usage.  I trust in God because I have found Him to be worthy of that trust.  My trust is not based in some fanciful wish that things would be different than they are but instead in a confidence that the world is as described in the bible and the solution to the problems of the world can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ.

For a completely unscientific analysis of words, I thought it would be interesting to do a little research.  Many will define faith as belief in those things we can't know.  What I decided to do was a simple word count -- how many times do the words faith and know appear in the bible?  With all of the discussions about how Christians have faith, it seems that it would be a very popular word.  In the KJV, I found that faith appears 247 times in 231 verses.  That is a pretty high number!  Next, I did the same search for the word know.  Know appears 763 times in 717 verses.  That is completely unscientific but I think it does say something about the difference in the word faith and know and could give us pause in how we describe our Christian experience.

So, because of this I am abandoning faith.  Instead, I am resting upon the truth that we can know the reality of the biblical claims as verified by historical methods and our own experience.  In its place, I am adopting the more descriptive term of trust.  Instead of "faith in God" and the implications of that within modern day usage, I will instead express my trust in God.  

The God of whom we read about in the old and new testaments and who 2,000+ years ago stepped into His creation as a small baby.  Who walked this earth as a man, took the sins of the world upon himself as he ascended to Mount Calvary.  Suffered on the cross to the point of death and then overcame death itself as witnessed by his disciples and recorded in the works collected as the New Testament.  It is he whom I trust to deliver His promises as He has continually demonstrated through the ages.  It is the same God who I have experienced in my own life as He calls me into a life of living not for myself but for Him.  So I am abandoning faith and instead moving to a more descriptive word, trust.  Just as I trusted my equipment and training to leap into the air from the relative safety of the aircraft, I can trust the God of Scripture and the witness of the Holy Spirit with my life and service to what is true and beautiful.