Audacious (au·da·cious) adjective.
Showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks for what you believe in.
These days, the struggle with belief is real. From life’s inception we develop and solidify what we believe is true, building parameters on how that truth is going to affect our life. Analyzing every bit of info, conscious and unconscious, to form an ever changing outlook that decides how we act and proceed down our individual paths. As an adult, you act as a product of this, picking and choosing what to believe. As a child, you believe most everything because you don’t realize that you can even be lied to. But one day you will, and when that happens, belief is shattered and doubt creeps in from every angle.
For me, it all started with the Fat-man in the red suit.
Like most kids, I had to determine, can this jolly superhuman dude be real? For me, as young as I was, this was a daunting dilemma. Then one day, the stocking above the fireplace hit the floor. One of my classmates challenged my belief in the man in red. This was a HUGE deal for me, not just because it robbed me of the joy and excitement I normally associated with Christmas, but because of the implications. I had believed in Santa because everyone around me up to that point had told me he was real. So, if he wasn’t, didn’t that mean that I had been lied to?
What else had people lied to me about?
The ramifications of Santa being fake, as silly as it seems now, were life-changing and stuck with me even into my adult life. As my wife Patricia and I had children, I expressed my feelings about the Fat-man and how I never wanted the Joy and Excitement of Christmas to change for them as it did me. The Fat Man was dead to us, and I would make sure my kids knew it.
Belief in God, believe it or not, is little different than belief in Santa. I would know.
I grew up in the church. The truths of the Bible were always part of my life and the plan of redemption through Jesus Christ was instilled at an early age. This truth, this belief in Christ, had eternal consequences much different than believing in the Fat-man. Santa being fake meant sorrow once a year, Christ being fake meant eternal sorrow after death. Those in the church told me He was real, but I had been burned before, so I knew that for as long as I would live, it was up to me and only me to prove or deny the validity of God in my life.
And I’ve gotta tell you, this would have been so much easier had I just been around at the same time as Jesus. To be able to see Him, talk to Him, experience His miracles, simply validate my belief. For the longest time it felt like this belief, the answer to this question of faith, was supposed to be based upon words and nothing else. The stories of those around me, the stories in the bible, they felt like just that.
Stories.
I spent years with this bland belief. I knew the truth but it didn’t affect the way I lived. What I lacked was the audaciousness to stick to my faith. I lacked the ability to look past my doubt and distinguish God as something worth believing in. When we struggle in this way, it’s important to remember that it is not because God isn’t trying to get our attention. God’s personal pursuit, motivated out of unconditional love, is always being sent throughout our lives. He’s continuously trying to gain our attention, which can be hard sometimes. We live distracting, event filled lives. We experience good tidings, bad tidings, and everywhere in between tidings. God can always be found hidden between the waves, but it is often in life’s worst circumstances that it is the easiest to see this.
I remember when the doctor told me to say goodbye to my brother. He was battling cancer and it looked like it was a battle that couldn’t be won. To later watch him walk out of the hospital, miraculously healed, is something I’ll never forget.
Key moments like this, along with a couple of audacious believers who mentored me in my darkest days, bolstered my faith and allowed me to solidify my belief in a way that helps me to step out audaciously when God tells me I should. Like recently, while at a restaurant with my wife Pat, my attention was drawn to a woman who entered with a large party. She seemed in pain. I felt God asking me to pray for her. Stepping out of my comfort zone, I got up and asked her if I could pray for her back. “Yes!” she replied. As I sat back down with my wife, I watched peace come over her and the people that she was with.
Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14: 12-14 NIV.
Our faith cannot merely be based on words and not actions. God is calling each of us to the audacious faith of John 14. I believe God is calling us to be more than just a dwelling place. I believe, according to His word, He is compelling us to release the power of His Holy Spirit and be the presence of Jesus in the world that He may be glorified!
I challenge you to plug into the power of the Holy Spirit that lives within you. Begin to ask for and receive His gifting. Live a life by His leading and inspiration. Grow to know His voice.
This is excellent! I, too, have been challenged recently to acknowledge the fact that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in me! His resurrection power is not only available to us but, I believe, we are required to use it just as the in the days of old! We are His disciples on this earth today and the Great Commission is for us also!! I think we aren’t walking in Christs power as we should. He has challenged me as of late to do just this! May we walk boldly before His Throne and set his people free!!
Appreciate your inspiration.