What Does Faith Look Like in Action?

Why do we find it so hard to have faith. Or is the real question, what does faith look like in action? Is it tireless and passionate prayer? Or is it a simple prayer and moving on with your life? Is it shameless persistence? Or is it delusional, you know acting like it already happened? Is it just forgetting about it? Perhaps it's resigning to fate? What exactly is it? A lot of times we are very quick to say if it's God's will for something to happen, it will. And we go about our business. No passionate request to God. Nothing. But Bishop TD Jakes told a story about the lepers and their call to Jesus that made me see things in a different light. Jesus was legit not even minding them; he was going about his own business. But they saw Jesus and CALLED out passionately and DESPERATELY to him to heal them. If they sat down in the same ole spot and thought you know what, if God wants us well, we will be; nothing would have happened to them. They would have remained ill.

Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!

There is something about a loud, piercing cry to God. In the same analogy, TD Jakes gave an example of a mom whose kids are always bickering, and making noise that she becomes used to it. So you know how the kids are making their foolish noise in the background, reporting each other every second, but the mom pays them no mind. She is probably still on a call, cleaning and just ignoring them. Until she hears a loud, piercing scream; the kind that makes her tell her friend on the phone: hold on, SOMETHING is wrong with one of my kids. She just recognizes, yeah that is panic, that is different.

Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!

Sometimes, you gotta yell out to God. Sometimes, you gotta be like yeah, God no this ain't cutting it. Shameless persistence. I will never forget seeing that phrase in the bible. Jesus was teaching about praying, when he told a story. He said if you go to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow food, but your friend is already asleep and locked his doors, so he tells you to leave him alone. If you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.  He told the story to explain that just keep asking and knocking, and eventually you will get. That verse changed the game for me. I'm shamelessly persistent in my prayers now. But you must also be willing to do as he says, even though most times it seems illogical. Back to the lepers, Jesus told them to show themselves to the priests. Like, what?! We just asked for mercy in desperation and that's the best you can respond with? Just do, sometimes even when it makes no sense to you or to those around you. All the times in the bible that Jesus is gobsmacked by remarkable faith (think woman with the issue of blood; guys bringing their friend through the roof for healing; centurion on behalf of his servant) it was with desperate people, whom Jesus wasn't even minding but all of whom went OUT OF THEIR WAY to desperately plead and ask him for a miracle. None of those guys just merely waited.

So what does faith look like in action? Sorry, I don't know either. I don't know for sure. I think it looks like confidence in God's ability. It looks like trust. It looks like believing even when it makes no sense; especially when it makes no sense. I think it looks nothing like folding your arms or complacency. I think it's being afraid, but still believing in God. It looks like hope. It is being desperate.  I think it looks like yelling with everything in you:

Jesus, Master, have mercy on me!

Love,

I

P.S: if you are interested in any of the biblical stories, they can be found in Luke 17: 11 -19; Luke 11:5-8; Luke 8:43-48; Luke 5:17-39; and Luke 7:1- 10) For this post, I referenced the NLT version.