“Faith
goes up the stairs that love has
built and looks out the windows which hope
has opened.”
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834–1892)
1. Love – Firmest of Foundations
Without
love all is lost, and where there is the absence of love all is vanity.
But
thankfully, in the Kingdom of God love abounds, is everywhere to be seen, and
is the basis of our very being.
The
whole creation was intelligently designed and constructed on the firmament of
love.
Love
is the firmest of foundations because she is found home first in truth. Love and truth are synonymous. Love is utterly faithful, reliable,
trustworthy. Love’s integrity is secure,
all ways. Truth is all these things,
too. And the truth is faith needs the
foundation of love with which to get moving.
(Hope keeps faith moving.)
Love’s
opposite is fear, as is faith’s. Hate is
no opposite of love, because hate is fuelled by fear. When faith ascends heaven’s stairway, she
does so because she is perfectly fearless, because she is so full of love. Love has nothing whatsoever to lose, for where
there’s loss there’s always thankfulness for the depth of meaning in the grief
experienced.
Faith
is only a dream without love; but with love, faith is able to make true a dear
reality.
So,
if love is a stairway, faith has safe assurance as it ascends on those
sturdiest of steps; a staircase that love has hewn out of the densest stone.
2. Faith – Willingness to Climb the Way
Love
may have gone before faith in building a most reliable of staircases, but faith
must still do what only faith can do: climb.
Faith
is movement. It takes us from paralysis
to mobilisation through sheer will of belief: I can, so I shall!
Faith
looks up from the bottom of that tremulous stairway, harrowing as it is to look
at the journey before it, and it ponders; it commits to the way, even if it
seems impossible. It trusts the
integrity of the stairway, but it cannot help wilt in doubt; yet it continues
to ascend, one hope-filled lunge at a time.
Nothing
is so inspiring as the faith that steps intrepidly. Though love has gone before it, faith must
still make its own volitional steps.
3. Hope – Enabler for Vision of the Kingdom
Hope
enables vision; clear out of the window, faith envisions blue skies. With hope, faith swells, and doubts are
crushed.
Hope
allows faith’s vision to be brought into being through bringing to fruition the
wider vistas of love’s reality. And love’s
reality is the Kingdom.
***
Faith is
underpinned by love and it is elevated by hope to a vision of the Kingdom.
Love opens the
way forward for faith, but without hope faith would be inconsolably frustrated.
Faith is
necessary for the spiritual way, yet it’s encumbered by crippling incapacities
if it’s short on love or hope.
So — when it
comes to others and to ourselves — let us allow love to flourish and hope to
shine; they both sustain our faith.
Love is the
foundation and hope is the enabler and the sustainer for our faith.
Overall, faith
may be perfect because love is perfect.
Love, being the firm foundation of faith, ensures faith has every good
thing.
Love is the
beginning and burgeoning of faith, and hope sees it through to the very end.
© 2016 Steve Wickham.
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