crazy faith

*Once traveling it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes.  It starts to look like something else-ignorance, for example.  Same thing happend to the Israelites.  Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rather just have a map.

*From Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

Reading an awesome book right now and came across this quote.  The book is actually fictional although it sounds like a "religious" book.  Intriguing story.  Mostly, I wanted to quote this author because what he wrote struck a particular chord with me today.  I feel the pain the character in this story is experiencing.  How often I feel the fool for believing in things I can't see, things that make no sense.   Even though I can "talk the talk" when it comes to faith; it's much more difficult to "walk the walk."  I had to smile when I read that "sometimes you'd rather just have a map" comment.  I feel that way often;  God why can't just spell it out in plain language, what exactly do you want me to do? 

Not only do I wish he'd give me explicit instructions about how to live, but sometimes I have a hard time believing everything he says.  I do feel naive.  I do feel the fool.  What foolishness to believe in a Maker, a God who created everything out of nothing.  Sounds more like a bedtime story than a place to lay a foundation of faith.  Then, I realize more than anything that what I'm suffering from is not a lack of faith, but a vain desire to appear more sophisticated, wise, intelligent to the world.  I don't want to be the one that everyone thinks is a "little over the top" when it comes to "religious" things. 

Oh, how fickle the human heart.  Not hard to see when I look at my own.  Of course, to say that my faith is always shifting with the winds of change isn't exactly accurate either.  God has brought me quite aways in this journey of faith.  But I find that with a more deeply rooted faith come bigger challenges, greater obstacles, and more painful trials to endure.  Sometimes I wish it weren't so hard.  For my friends who are runners, I often think of it as a "race" of life.  I'm a terrible runner, but maybe, hopefully in the case of faith I run a good race; a race worth cheering about.