The true measure

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“There will come a time when the true measure of your faith is when you are forced to look for Good where there seems to be none found anywhere.”

Me, 12 April 2016

I wrote this in April of 2016. I don’t know what was happening at that time, and I don’t know where I heard it from. My calendar says I had dinner at McDonald’s, went out for evangelism, and then watched a movie (Mr. Right).

My calendar can be so detailed, and yet so unhelpful at times.

So, re the quote above. It is uncannily apt to my situation right now. My faith is definitely being tested. There is Good everywhere, there will always be Good on this earth because God created it. But in terms of “my life”… things are mighty difficult right now.

I cry at the slightest display of a kindness. My default answer to “how are you” is “I’m not ok”. I feel like I’m always at the edge of an abyss. When I’m somewhere very high, it feels like the bottom beckons at me, and I want to just jump off.

That last one has a scientific term. It’s called “the call of the void”, also known as “high place phenomenon”; it’s perfectly normal and lots of people experience it. It’s also totally unnerving, and I wish I don’t naturally have it especially now that I live on the fourteenth floor, and and I am very vulnerable most of the time.

Anyway. Back to the quote.

I am being forced to look for Good in certain people, where none, or very little, seems to be found. Toxic people, who prefer to deal in hasty generalizations and biased observations, over hard facts and gracious assumptions. Faithless people, who don’t believe in God at all, at least not the way He is meant to be beheld. People who seem to suck out the air in every room they occupy. People who just plain suck.

People who are difficult to love.

Does this justify a loss of faith?

It most certainly does not.

“the true measure of your faith is when you are forced to look for Good where there seems to be none found anywhere.”

… and when that time comes, the answer of those who believe in God is to love them back to the point of selflessness. Loving hurts, sometimes. Jesus died on the cross for it.

The lashes will come, over and over. It will seem like they never stop. The cuts will be deep, and they will ooze with blood. And it would seem like they don’t have time to heal when the next strike will come, the next blow will hit, and they would be bleeding fresh again.

Then your faith will be measured once more, and then again, over and over, until it seems like it’s all measurement, no relief, no reprieve, no end to the testing.

And when it start to feel that way, like there is no end to the torture, that is when you stand up and praise.

the true measure of your faith is when you are forced to look for Good where there seems to be none found anywhere.

… everywhere. As we said above, there is good everywhere on this earth because it is God’s creation. There is bound to be good.

And that is what you say to the testing. That is how you pass it, and surpass it.

I don’t know what happened in 2016, but I’m still here now. And I’m still praising.

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