Some thoughts on Faith

One of the things I enjoyed immensely about living here before I had kids was my time in the kitchen to cook, clean up and listen to music or sermons by Tim Keller. Times like that were so good for my introverted soul (=

Now that I have kids, being in the kitchen is fraught with potential accidents....particularly since I'm a big believer in having kids be a part of what is happening while cooking etc. Layla is constantly sneaking licks of things or asking to try things. (she chewed an entire garlic clove yesterday for about 30 seconds before calmly spitting it out and say "Too Spicy!!"). Anyway, Layla often spills things and I must say it irks me that her constant response is "Don't worry, it's only water." or "No problem, we can clean it up". I'm glad she's got a calm response, but I do wish that sometimes she'd seem at least a little contrite.

Well anyway, tonight we had a family of four over for dinner in a rather disorganized and impromtu way. The kitchen was a MESS and I was so tired from our chaotic evening that I had to sit down with a cup of tea to recover before attacking the piles of dishes. Lj and R were in bed so once I had the energy to clean up the kitchen, I had a wonderful chance to listen to a sermon on faith by Mr. Keller. It has probably been at least a year since I've been able to do that!

Some gems:
A faith that doesn't need success is the ultimate success. (Meaning that if your definition of faith is that things will go well in the end if you just pray/do enough, you'll run into the ground eventually.)
Embracing Jesus and what he did for us turns every failure and every sorrow into gold. I don't know how, but it does.

Jesus' tragedy of God turning away from him, and his suffering and non-escape from death, is a precious thing to remind us that our faith in God is not about having an easy, comfortable designer life.

Boy is it good to be reminded of all of that. I'll take more chance to do dishes at midnight if I can walk away with some good encouragement like that......