Galations 2:20

There is no Oliver. There is only The-Christbot-that-used-to-be-Oliver.

It's funnier when you hear it voiced by my inner-dialogue.

More seriously, faith has been a concept I've been trying to wrap my brain around lately.

To me, the 2b definition from Merriam-Webster's dictionary is actually the most meaningful connotation as applied to Christianity:

firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust


The one above I think helps me understand it better, but there is a more Christian-specific one in 2a:
(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

The one aspect of faith that I am more comfortable with is the idea that I can't prove that Jesus was who he said was, yet I believe it.

But there's another aspect, the practical application of faith, and that's the one that's more challenging for me. K & I have been listening over the last couple days to Tim Keller's sermon about Abram and he says that one aspect of following the call of God is the volitional; meaning doing what God calls you to do, without understanding where or why and you really don't know how it's going to end. If you understood the where's and why's and how things would end or turn out then, by definition, it's not faith. It's something else...

Abraham doesn't understand why he's called to Canaan, but he goes. He doesn't understand why God calls him to sacrifice Isaac, but he faithfully obeys.

How do I know God's calling? If He answers and the answer frightens me, will God strengthen my conviction if I ask for my cup to passeth from me, however trivial it is by comparison with His?

Here's a question of faith: Jesus knew that he would die on the cross and he knew why. Did he know that God would raise him up again?

On the other hand, maybe it's not always such a sensational act of faith like venturing into unknown lands or child sacrifice. Couldn't faith sometimes be manifested in more mundane callings?

Maybe calling isn't necessarily something that always works on a conscious level?

In Steve Jobs' Stanford excellent commencement speech, he talks about connecting the dots:

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

He is describing faith. And, not saying that Steve Jobs was called by God to create Apple, but it's definitely an example of how faith can power us to fulfill promises we never dreamed possible, but made possible because we just did based on belief...