How Faithfulness Is the Abiding of Reality

“In Christ, transformation has been initiated that will continue the process of transforming you.”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17

The greatest gift

Is the grip of reality

As it strangles and stifles

Our day.

But the greatest rift

Is due to our morality

“God, you’re bad,”

We wrongly say.

The person who is soon to backslide right out of the faith they now proclaim in the Lord Jesus is the person who banks on a safe reality where blessing is an expectation. They are soon disappointed. “I thought God was good,” they say, not understanding that God’s goodness is not dependent on, and no guarantee of, their expectation of a life of delivery from sin, hardship, and inconvenience.

Faith serves the faithful, who will trust God notwithstanding every circumstance of reality. With no ‘requirements’ of God, they are thankful for the small mercies as much as they are prayerful about the common grievances known to fallen humanity as much as they hold on for dear life when they are cast into the abyss of grief. They understand and accept their broken lives; that, though they are a ‘new creation’, they also have much of the fallen nature to constantly surrender to God. They realise the weakness of their human condition and, what’s more, they accept it.

We have a problem that will remain with us all our days – the sinful nature.

We have been delivered of the need to dwell there, but we have not yet been delivered of the desires, especially the desire for comfort, for blessing, for ease, and for contentedness beyond our will to align with God’s.

It takes years to learn how to do some things and years, still, to unlearn other things. Why are we so impatient with ourselves when our Lord is abounding in patience?

It is the faithful person who is known to finish their race. They may not bound out of the blocks but they do consistently tread. And even if they are beset by a plague of depression or some other setback, they keep going the best they can.

***

Occasionally the waves we meet in life pound us and wipe us out. We remain still for a while and then we shake ourselves off, before having another go. That is resilience. Reality is that wave, ever changing in frequency and power. Abiding with reality is the most important way we can obey God’s will.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.