Another example of that “complete trust”………..I stumbled upon this quote………“Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to “go out” in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to “go out” through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.”
― Oswald Chambers
“Chief among those other things, Franklin suggests, is the angel’s faith. And this is something so important that it trumps everything else.”
There’s a lot of “meat” in this first week, God Honors Our “Childlike Faith”. There are some pretty big topics addressed, but I think the lines that hit home the most for me at this point in my life are the two listed above……….I just found that I could not really get past those two lines. And after I managed to make my way to the end of the entire section I still scanned back until my eyes again rested on those lines above. Especially the second one……….”And this is something so important that it trumps everything else.” Of course, per the first line, it’s in reference to “faith”.
So, according to the dictionary explanation of the word “faith” it is usually a noun, and it can mean “allegiance to duty or a person, loyalty, fidelity to one’s promises, sincerity of intentions, belief and trust in and loyalty to God, belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion, firm belief in something for which there is no proof, complete trust, something that is believed especially with strong conviction especially a system of religious beliefs, without question. Synonyms – see belief.”
The word “faith” can also sometimes be used as a transitive verb………a verb means action. A transitive verb is composed of two parts. It is an action………expressing some sort of activity happening…….and it must have a direct object used with it when it is used in that way, meaning someone or something that receives the action. In this case, the transitive verb “faith” means to believe or trust. So it is literally putting faith into action, the actual act of believing or trusting someone or something.
Wow.
So, after reading those definitions, the biggest things that jump out to me personally are that the words believe/belief and trust are used over and over. And the really huge thing that keeps popping out to me is “complete trust”.
Complete.
Not sometimes, not partial, not when things go right, not when the outcome is positive, not when I feel like it, not just on certain days of the week…………..but complete trust. Complete………..synonyms for complete include perfect, entire, whole, total, absolute, full………you get the idea.
Meaning, that faith is putting your perfect trust, your entire trust, your whole trust, your total trust, your absolute trust, your full trust………..your complete trust, in God.
Again, wow. That’s a tall order.
And, I assume, is why the term “childlike faith” is used to describe Clarence.
Bob Welch describes having that type of faith in the book, “As children we are not jaded by the sophistication of the world. We’re real. We’re humble. We’re willing to admit our needs and trust that others can help us. We’re unpretentious and adventurous. We’re lighthearted and imaginative. And we’re fearless, willing to take a risk…….”
Welch states that Oswald Chambers referred to this as “reckless joy”.
So, as children, do we have faith? Of course we do, we just don’t know that we should call it that.
We are real all the time……..we say what we are feeling all the time, in every situation, sometimes loudly and without regard to how it might make someone else feel or how they may react and without worry about how they may choose to view us because we said it. We ask for what we need and we expect that others will take care of us and our needs. Complete and utter trust.
We don’t yet know that others can be judgmental…….or rude…….or unkind…….uncaring or unresponsive. And even if they are, we don’t care. We simply know that someone will take care of us.
We do things that make us happy……….for the sheer reason that they do. We are adventurous because we do not yet know that sometimes things don’t always turn out like we expect them to……..again, because we trust that someone will be there to take care of us either way. Someone will fix it.
We use our imaginations…….our creativity………we are fearless……..and we are risk-takers……..because we know or rather we trust, completely, that someone will be there to take care of us. Always.
And, in most cases, in situations where there are good parents present, we are taken care of. Someone fixes it. Someone makes everything better and everything is as it is supposed to be in our recklessly joy-filled, happy, non-jaded, adventurous life.
And so it should be in our adult lives. We should have complete trust, childlike faith, in our heavenly parent at all times. Just as Clarence does in “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
He says what he thinks. He has a crazy and creative idea in mind when he comes to earth as an answer to all the prayers for George Bailey. He doesn’t worry about it working……..he quite literally, just “jumps” right in. Complete trust. Complete trust that his plan……..and ultimately, God’s plan…….will work out the way it’s meant to. He has faith in himself because of his faith in God. Faith that God will use him to change George Bailey’s life. Faith in action.
So what happens to most of us? What happens to change or question our childlike faith?
According to Bob Welch, we grow up and “we get jaded by the world. Instead of being real, we rationalize behaviors. We learn to put our personal spin on our shortcomings rather than deal with them. We become pretentious. We throw ourselves into all sorts of physical adventures but are cowardly regarding relationships, flitting from one person to the next, lacking the courage to commit. We hide our needs from others. From God. From ourselves. We play it safe, settling for too little in life. Rather than live by faith, we embrace one of many forms of legalism, be it a secular or religious version. Rather than try to please God with simple faith, we complicate things by trying to prove to Him how worthy we are by our works. We’re full of fear, but we mask it with everything from busyness to addictions to rationalization, as we desperately seek to convince ourselves that we’re content. “
So, in our adult life, Welch challenges that we know very little about that “reckless joy”.
As hard as it is to admit, I fall into that category. I believe, and I often say that I know things are going to work out for the best, God’s got this. And deep down, I know that’s true………but “complete trust”………..if I completely trusted that fact in all situations then I wouldn’t have to remind myself so much. I probably wouldn’t need the huge framed piece of wall art in my home stating that “everything happens for a reason”. I would be honest with others and with myself at all times, in all situations. I wouldn’t say things out of fear……I wouldn’t hold back from doing things because I was afraid of failure, rejection, or of making a mistake.
As human adults we often, if we’re honest with ourselves and each other, exhibit those types of behaviors.
Recently I made a statement several times to my mother about a situation in my own life. She finally asked if I really felt the way I said I did………asking if I was saying it for her benefit or my own. In reality, I finally confessed that I didn’t feel the way I kept adamantly saying that I did, I was simply trying to make myself believe that I did feel that way because it was what I needed to think in order to keep myself from possibly getting hurt. And because I thought it was what others wanted to hear, versus the alternative, but true facts.
If you reread the list of “childlike” traits, I was in direct opposition……….and if you glance over those typical adult traits the situation fits right in. We mask the truth. From others……and ourselves…….and we ultimately try to mask them from God.
And we work really hard……..we stay busy…….we become addicted…….we rationalize things………and we tell ourselves that “it’s a wonderful life”.
When, as simple as it sounds, we shouldn’t try so hard. We should model Clarence. We should go with our gut instinct. Formulate a plan and stick with it. Be adventurous. Be honest. Simply put, we shouldn’t worry what others think of us…….we shouldn’t judge ourselves so harshly……..we shouldn’t worry about how God sees us as much as we worry about having simple faith in Him………we should just trust that He has it all under control. He will put us in the right situations with the right people and if we do what He asks of us, things will be taken care of.
Faith………..”something so important that it trumps everything else”.
Is life perfect………does Mr. Potter return the money……….does George get to travel the world……….do the children stop getting sick in the old drafty house……….? No, of course not. Life situations still happen. But through faith…….things work out. Clarence is faithful………..and George realizes that his life is pretty wonderful. Not perfect. Not what he had planned when he was young. But wonderful just the same.
And so it should be with us………we need to strive for that kind of faith……..childlike faith in God and what he is trying to do in all aspects of our life.
As I go about this week………..and this year………and the rest of my journey here on earth……..because it’s a lofty goal to strive for, I am going to work toward being a person of “childlike faith”. I am going to push to have more of those life experiences that could be classified under “reckless joy”.
This week I will focus on and look for ways that I can put that faith into action. I will challenge myself to have “complete trust”.
And I will challenge you to do the same.
J. M. Barrie said that “The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
Perhaps that’s why Clarence finally got his.
Maybe with a little faith we can be granted some “wings” here on earth.
Maybe making our faith a little less of a noun and a little more of a transitive verb between us and God will help us “fly” a little easier in all the areas of our life.
After all, it worked for Clarence.
I received this book as a gift (one of the 4 books bought because of an inner voice) before Christmas. By Christmas, I had read the entire book….now I’m going to travel back through the book over the next 52 weeks and let you know what I’m thinking about as I reread it as well as some random thoughts and memories it brought forth as I read it the first time. I’ve loved this movie as long as I can remember! I have the movie in both black and white and color, VHS tape and DVD, a couple of books about it, a saved Guidepost article, a Christmas ornament and a long since broken, and much missed snowglobe…..I don’t know what originally attracted me to the movie as a child, I just remember liking George Bailey and his story. I guess maybe I fell in love with the movie because George was so likable and Bedford Falls was somewhat like the small town I was growing up in…..I was obsessed with the 40s and 50s and the movies, music and antiques of that period by the time I was a teenager, so of course my love for the movie grew and we watched it every year at Christmas. I hoped someone would offer to lasso the moon for me and buy me an old house like the one Mary wanted…..I like everyone else, have not lived the life I thought I would live but I’ve lived a good life….no one gave me the moon and my husband and I built a new house rather than restoring an old one and I like George didn’t leave small town life for world travels….but, like George, life has blessed me. I have 2 wonderful kids and recently have had another child, a former student, just fall into my household….so she will be joining our family in 2013 to make me a mom of 3. “We’re full of fear, but we mask it with everything from busyness to addictions to rationalization, as we desperately seek to convince ourselves that we’re content.”….this according to Bob Welch the author of 52 Little Lessons….and how fitting it is….we do lose our childlike faith….overplan…..rationalize……we try to prove to ourselves and others that we are worth something to the world and to God but, we are all imperfect, living in an imperfect world and how we live our lives and the choices we make are much more important in the grand scheme of things than we will ever know in this life…..we are all interconnected at some level. When we are born, we are destined to live a certain number of days and impact a certain number of lives and we like imperfect angel without wings Clarence, have to just jump into life, live it to its fullest, make mistakes, admit fault when it’s due, and accept what life brings to us with “childlike faith”. I hope 2013 brings us all a renewed “childlike faith” as we travel the pages of this book together.
This Wonderful Life 