Belief. The deep-down kind.

First, can I say that my general disposition has dramatically improved with the weather here in Minnesota over the last week or two. For my seasonally affected comrades out there, you’ll understand… it’s like a weight off my chest. I’m writing this out on the back porch and I can smell dirt for the first time in 5 months. But this state is always moody and I’m not about to be lulled into another winter here. Georgia here I come!!

I’m in John 7. For the last couple weeks, God has been saying to me, “bathe in John”. So I’ve been focusing on small chunks. It certainly is an “immersable” book. Lots of rich stuff getting right at the core of what I feel and believe about Jesus. Today, I’m thinking about belief.

3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

Sound familiar? It does to me. Advice from a skeptic. “Anyone who wants to become a _________, does __________, so you should _________.” Jesus’ own flesh and blood held him at arm’s length. They couldn’t deny that he was special, and perhaps they thought he was sent from God. But opinion and belief are two different things. It’s my opinion that God is powerful, but ask me to pray for something concrete and I hesitate. I’m confronted with a fear of disappointment rooted in the deep-seated belief that God won’t show up, that he’ll leave me hanging.

Jesus’ response to them isn’t to convince them that he knows what he’s doing. He knows the problem isn’t with their cognition or his communication with them, but in their fundamental beliefs about him.

 6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.”

He gives them the information: the reason for his behavior. But he doesn’t try to convince them. He is patient and realistic. His actions will speak louder than his words. He must show his brothers who he is because they won’t believe it otherwise.

So what made the difference for me on those occasions that I ignored my core belief about God and acted on what I thought about God? Experience and desperate hope I suppose. I would see God work in undeniable ways through some life experience and extrapolate with desperate hope that God could and would do more. My hope and yearning outweighed my fear of disappointment. Guess what? I discovered that God DID work in cool ways when I did that. And even when He didn’t work (or I didn’t understand the way he worked), it wasn’t as big a deal as I had feared. It wasn’t so disappointing after all. In fact, I kind of enjoyed living on faith, even the result wasn’t what I expected.

I mean, if I were expecting Jesus to be something He’s not, then I’ll be rightly disappointed. But by reading the bible and spending time with Him every day, I get more familiar with what he promises and claims to be. And among those promises is PLENTY of crazy stuff to keep me on my toes, living a radically different lifestyle, expecting WAY more out of Him than I do now. I’m living in the tension of the Kingdom-among-us and the Kingdom-not-yet-here. But even walking that tension I find my core beliefs about Jesus are emaciated and paltry compared with the robust “feast on me” attitude he invites me to adopt.