Lenten Reflection #23: Give Me Proof

"Who is wise and understanding among you?  Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom."
James 3:13

Proof.

People always want proof.  Faith is difficult for many because we live in a world where we are not comfortable with mystery.  We want to solve everything and we want to have 100% certainty that we are right. We want the proof so that we can show we are right.

Maybe, that is what it is.  Maybe we just want to be right.  It isn't the mystery that scares us as much as it is that we might not fully know.  Somehow if we live in the mystery, or admit to things that we don't fully know or understand, we wont seem intelligent or wise.

Yet, wisdom does not come from whether we can win a debate or show people how smart we are.  The greatest proof of our faith is not that we outsmart others or that we can have all the answers.  True wisdom, according to James 3:13, brings about a humility to live what we say we believe.  To show what we know to be true about Jesus through our actions  not through debate.

I have someone very close to me who feels that faith in Jesus is unreasonable.  They think being a Christian does not make since.  My first thought is to "convince"them with all my intellectual arguments.  To debate them until I can say, "see I'm right, your wrong." But, that is not what I am called to do.  It probably wont work.  They are smart and they are probably not willing to budge until they see Jesus in some supernatural way that they can say proves his existence definitively.  He has heard lots of arguments.  He has heard lots of evidence.

What I feel deep down within me is that what I need to do is live out the proof.  Live my life with humility showing my good deeds.  Be willing to lay down my pride or desire to when in order to love and pray that in some way that he might see the truth of Jesus in me and my life.

Someone once said, "you have to be Jesus to someone to earn the right to tell them about Jesus."

James reminds us that true wisdom is not an intellectual argument it is a life lived in humility and love.  It is faith in action.

I pray that God will work through me to help in this relationship.  I pray that God will give me the wisdom to live my faith in such a way that he encounters Jesus in a supernatural way.  I pray that I wont turn my faith into an argument to be won.

Love today,

In Christ's love and mine,
Doug

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