Faith

I got my new devotional/meditation book yesterday and started it this morning. I wish I had found it in 2001, but it didn’t come out until 2003 and I only found it a few weeks ago. It's called Reconciling Journey by Michal Anne Pepper.

It is more a journey of discovering who you are spiritually, than a defense of being gay like so many books on being gay and Christian.

The first week is about the faith experience. The author points out that the words in Greek for Faith (noun) and Believe (verb) are the same in today’s meditation. It is a nice reminder.

I found the wording of the NRSV interesting in today’s Biblical texts.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ³By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. Hebrews 11:1-3

The bold parts are particularly interesting as that last phrase relates so much to what I am reading in The Power of Intention. Everything is part of the same creative energy (God)...the invisible.

My neighbor who is a nurse made the interesting observation the other day, which was new to me, but apparently a person’s weight drops 28 grams immediately after death, as if something is leaving the body. At the very least it leads one to believe that our physical person is not all that there is to us.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

I believe that the bold phrase above is where many of us GLBT Christians hit a road block in our faith at times. We just don’t feel that there is a cloud of witnesses who share in our faith or approve of it as the case may be. We are not certain that these are our ancestors. As I look back on my own heritage and the Judeo-Christian tradition, I do see the connection but only after several years of examination. Perhaps this study would have made this easier as it seeks to make the Spiritual rather than Defensive connection to our faith.