Faith in Action

My faith is like my own internal combustion engine. It is my motive power on good days and bad. I am grateful that my faith is strong enough to keep me going when things aren't going how I envisioned them. Sometimes what I reeeaaallllly want is exactly what I don't get.

It happened recently.

I thought something was going to happen, and I even got lots of little hints and signs that something was going to happen. I wanted this thing to happen very much. I tried to NOT get my hopes up or count my eggs before they hatched, or whatever, but I failed in that respect. The best I could do was to be patient until "it" happened, and I quietly and humbly congratulated myself on being so patient.

And then, the exact opposite thing happened. I miss-read the clues completely. No one knows it, but I was actually speechless. My initial reaction was to throw a tantrum. Or walk away and quit. But I didn't.

And I'm not.

My faith keeps chugging along. The things I know to be true are still true. God has never let me down before. Oh, He has done things vastly differently than I would have, to be sure. He has also taken much longer and dragged things out farther than I would have liked. But His ideas always work out, where mine do not. So I have faith, and I stick with it, and even though I can only see it in hindsight, it is still there, and He was right all along.

I am grateful for my faith, and for the opportunities God gives me to put my faith in action. If He left me to my own devices, I am ashamed to say I would always pick the easy, convenient, attractive, "reader's digest" version of everything. I am grateful for His way of doing things, because of the depth and solidity I would skip out on every other way.

What are you blessed with today?