faith.

I’ve ben thinking about faith today. a friend of mine is having a bit of financial trouble and he might be losing his house- and i was talking with him and as he was telling me this story, i was absolutely shocked! He seemed fairly content. “this isnt my house anyway” he said. and he began talking with me about the nature of following God wholly- that when you look at people in the bible, the Spiritual Studs, they all had some of the hardest times of life- from murdering someone, to being a drunk, having your life ripped away from you, to crucifixion- SAFETY was never a number one priority for these guys.

Francis Chan spoke to us at Hume last summer about this, telling the story of Elijah at Mount Carmel. You might know the story, but if you dont- Elijah is having a “duel” of god’s with the prophets of Baal (1 kings 18). After building two wooden altars (one for baal, one for Yahweh), and sacrificing two bulls(one each)- the contest was on. the god to set their sacrifice and altar on fire would win. prophets of Baal were up. they began chanting and shouting for Baal to show up and set ablaze the altar. “SHOUT LOUDER!” Elijah taunted them, “sure he can here you!”.

after numerous tries, Elijah said “ok... now its Yahweh’s turn”. He orders a BUTT load of water to be poured onto the altar, and then kneels and prays saying simply “Oh God, Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Show us that you are real.”

Immediately the Fire of God comes down and destroys the ENTIRE ALTAR! and it says “When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The LORD -he is God! The LORD -he is God!" (numbers 18:39)

Then he said “do you know what James says about Elijah? “Elijah was just a man, like us” (james 5:17)

“So...” Francis Continued, “How come when we pray, fire doesn’t come down?”

Im beginning to think that Im relying on my own strength and power far too much lately. I need to change my thinking, and begin shooting for heaven. because, as C.S. lewis said: “If you aim for heaven, and you miss... you get the world thrown in. But if you aim for the world, you get neither.”