FAITH: Personal leap of faith!

"Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith."

Habakkuk 2:4

As a youngster I was always in trouble. When I would walk somewhere I could hear the doors and windows shutting in homes as I approached. I could hear people saying things like, “Look out Ethel, here comes that Gillmartin kid!”

I clearly remember one time when my friends and I took a joy ride [my wife swears I stole a car; I’m still in denial]. Well we wrecked it and all three of us took off running. I was one of the fastest kids in town and no one was going to catch me running scared.

I ran to a set of stairs on an embankment, going down about twenty-five steps in under five seconds. It was then I remembered there were over a 100 steps in all. I had visions of police at the top and police at the bottom.

I vaulted the handrail and ran into the dark, looking for a bush to hide in. I found a nice fat round one and leaped to hide … it had no bottom. The plant had grown horizontally over the abyss. The rapid descent got me down another 40 steps. "Thump" I landed. The Lord had prepared an area of nice soft forest mulch in advance for me.

That was my first leap of faith. The next day we were caught and had to take responsibility for our actions and make restitution [yes, there was a time, long ago, in America when people had to do that].

Looking back on the event from this distance I can see I didn’t learn my lesson very well at the time, but the Lord’s hand was clearly on my life.

Faith is like that bush; it’s sort of laid out there for any who have eyes to see. But faith is unlike that particular bush in one very critical way: faith has a rock under it, preventing our fall.

Christianity, Faith,
Illustrations, Religion

REBIRTH: Unexpected beauty and purpose for lives which were previously barbaric!

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."

2 Corinthians 5:17

In the late '90s, Finland’s hottest rock group was Apocalyptica; their fans don’t use drugs or mosh, instead they sit quietly and listen attentively.

Apocalyptica is composed of four young cellists, who study at Sibelius Academy, Finland’s top classical training ground. Their music? Metallica, Faith No More and other heavy-metal musicians.

Jim Heintz, writing for the Associated Press, says,

“Apocalyptica achieves something that surprises adults: it finds dignity and intelligence in music usually dismissed as the theme songs of glue-sniffing morons. … The warm, woody tones of a cello can change a riff that that sounds shrill and ugly on an electric guitar into something yearning and lovely.”

Heintz goes on to say,

“The result is to bring an unexpected formality and deliberation to songs that in their original versions were barbaric yawps. In Apocalyptica’s hands, heavy metal leaves the torture chamber and becomes chamber music.”

In the hands of God, the unrighteous and ungodly become dignified, “yearning and lovely”.

The world looks upon what once belonged to it and finds “an unexpected formality and deliberation” where once, “in their original versions,” stood “barbaric” noise.

In God’s hands, sinful man “leaves the torture chamber and becomes” free indeed.
[The Washington Times; July 12-18, 1999; 2]

Christianity, Illustrations,
Rebirth, Religion