Faith

Trust is the main currency of the age in which we live, and people seem to be changing the directions they invest in faster than in the past. How is our life of faith influenced by how we relate generally to trust?

“They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting” (Psalm 94:4).

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

With Jesus, it was always different. For most of my life, I could only see God the Father through a legalistic filter. But with Jesus, it was always different.

Jeddah is different, at least according to its city motto. This Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea is home to more than 4 million people and is a gateway to Mecca: the holiest city in Islam. Millions of pilgrims come through Jeddah to visit Mecca, some 65 kilometres to the east, and Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, 360km to the north.

If we accept that there are realities beyond our direct perception, then faith in God becomes a hypothesis worthy of serious consideration, rather than an absurdity.

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...

"God has guided my steps in life, saved me from some wrong decisions, and when I have made mistakes, He has helped me to admit my mistakes and learn from them." (Dumitru Borţun)

Hendel Butoy was born in Brazil and raised in southern California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and was then offered a position as an animator at Walt Disney in 1979.

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards" (Job 5:7).

How far is too far? Is there a point of no return?

The first part of my life was marked by multiple barriers that placed me in a minority status.

Sinking into darkness, after 14 years of enjoying all the spectacles of grace and beauty in which our world is enveloped, can be the beginning of tragedy. Or it can be the moment when you begin to discern, nuance by nuance, the splendour of a reality that healthy eyes so often miss.

Whoever enters into a friendly dialogue with the will of God will never be the same person as before this dialogue. However, whatever one believes about God's will depends on their view of God's character and, therefore, on God's purpose for them.

When a visitor walks into your church, what will they see? What will they hear? How will they feel?