What is faith? What is the will and what roles do they have in our walk with Jesus?
After my last interview with Dr. Jim Wilder, we were chatting around some of these thoughts that I have been sitting in since the release of my book, Walk With Me: It’s Not About Getting It Right. For me, a large part of my faith journey is attached to striving and so often I get stuck wondering if I have enough faith or big enough prayers. I was curious about how this works in our brains neurologically and what we can do, based on how we are wired, to have that mountain moving faith that I feel like I’m supposed
to have all the time. Or even faith the size of a mustard seed.
The bigger question growing within my spirit is how do we live from a relational trust where faith doesn’t become a place of striving and feeling like we are not doing it right or having enough. Jim encouraged me to read his book, The Solution Of Choice: Four Good Ideas That Neutralized Western Christianity. In doing so, I had to invite Jim back for another conversation around some of the profound thoughts he has laid out that might give us a few key things to consider in our own faith journeys.
On the pages, Jim and co-author Marcus Warner give us the historical context to some of the movements that laid the foundations for our church and leadership models which often make our choices and our will the center of the Christian life. (There are more they write about, but for now, these are the things we will unpack together.) The question we have to ask today is this; does that align with how we were created for transformation? Is knowledge of the right thing to do and my will to do those very things supposed to be my focus? What other models exist that could lead me into the direction I’m seeking in my daily walk with Christ? What happens if I never really know the right thing to do, or my will to do them wavers depending on my circumstances on any given day.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is about hesed discipleship. Hesed being the Hebrew word for an unfailing love that God gives continually throughout the biblical narrative. “When hesed replaces truth as the foundation of discipleship, the whole model self-corrects. Placing love at the core of the transformation process allows truth, choice and power to play their proper roles and not bear a weight they were never intended to carry.” What excited me about this conversation is what would happen if we put love back into the place it was always meant to be and let our faith and our beliefs grow through our attachments to God and one another? Can you imagine if transformation felt more attainable and became a flow-on effect from love and not something we have to continually strive for?
Look for this conversation to drop soon! Can't wait to share this with you all.
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