Patching Cracks
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When I wake up in the morning, there is a sliver of time between when I get out of bed and when my children get up and running. In that time, the house is quiet. The kids aren’t talking, arguing, running around, asking questions, singing songs, or doing any of the other things they do when they are awake. The house is peaceful. Every morning, my youngest gets up first, and I can hear him from the moment his feet hit the floor. He is loud. In fact, he is often loud enough to get the others moving. Within a short window of time, my peaceful house fills with life. As much as I treasure the quiet time, I love the life that fills the place. This week, I have been thinking a lot about how our faith shows up in our day to day lives. The book of James says that faith that doesn’t do works is dead. If we have faith in Jesus, that faith produces action. Like my kids in the morning, as soon as their eyes open, they are busy, chattering, noisy blessings. You can’t miss them. Living, vital faith is alive and noisy. It finds things to do to serve God, love neighbors, and care for the helpless. James used an illustration to make the point. He asks: “If you come across a brother or sister who is hungry and without clothes and wish them well but do nothing to help, can such a faith save you?” Mind you, you can’t work your way to Heaven. Only faith in Jesus can save you. The trick is that faith wakes up and makes its presence known. It’s what it does. Mind you, I am not advocating giving everything to folks who won’t work. The Bible doesn’t support that view. Rather, I am saying that what we believe will cause us to serve others. The world around us is full of folks who we can serve. There are seniors around our community who live alone and are lonely. Simply visiting them is an act of service. There are parents who need childcare so they can earn a living. There are folks who just need a note or phone call saying: ‘you are loved’ or ‘I am praying for you.’ The activity center needs folks to take care of their clients. The school needs bus drivers. Many of us don’t need jobs, but we do need purpose. We need to find people to love and serve. We need to quit hitting the snooze alarm and get our faith out of bed so it can make some noise. Often when we see stories like the one about BSA struggling, we say “That’s a shame. Someone should do something.” It’s easy to forget that we are someone and that God might be sending us. I’m not trying to guilt anyone into volunteering or getting a job or visiting seniors or mowing lawns for shut-ins or anything else. I am saying that our faith will naturally move, shake, and make an impact. If I planted apple trees in my yard and apples never grew, I would wonder what was wrong and try to fix it. If my faith isn’t producing any fruit in the form of works or a more Christlike demeanor, I should be even more concerned about what might be happening. The first step in this journey is to go out and act.
