Faith has made me

DAILY BYTE

I had a friend at university who was exactly opposite me in most ways, including the fact that she was agnostic, which basically for her meant that she couldn’t conclude whether God existed, or not, and it didn’t ultimately matter. I was a Christian. She went to church sometimes but more for the community than for the message. I helped lead the campus worship band, and we were truly great friends.

We would have rip-roaring discussions about the existence of God, issues with homosexuality - you name it. We discussed it. And we virtually never agreed. But we stayed friends, and we kept talking and listening (sometimes better than others...).

A couple of years ago, I came home from seminary to find a package at my doorstep. I hadn’t spoken to this friend in quite a long time, but I knew she was in the Peace Corps in Central America. So, I curiously opened up a dented box that had clearly travelled many miles to find a book inside. It was a beautifully illustrated book of Christian hymns, and inside the front cover I found a poem she had written entitled, ‘Faith has made me.’ And I so wish it weren’t packed up safely in a memory box in storage because I would love to share it with you, as it was written.

But the gist was this: She wrote that she would probably always be agnostic, and that was just the way it was. But, experiencing faith in God had shaped who she had become. It had changed her life, and she just wanted to tell me.

Faith has made me.

I sat on my bed and wept. Because even if my friend is not what we would call a confessing Christian, I know from the scriptures we read what the Holy Spirit looks like, and the grace of the Holy Spirit was written on the page.

And what a beautiful and humbling surprise it was.

That poem is one of my most precious possessions because it is a reminder to me of the mysterious ways that the Spirit of God is working through our relationships with people that we truly love even if we don’t understand them, as we scrounge around together in the light, looking for the key.

The story I shared about searching for the key with a friend at the beginning of this week sounds like a biblical parable, but it is, indeed, a Sufi story. Sufism is the inner, mystical dimension of Islam, and it’s described in the book, The Principles of Sufism, as “a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God."

As people who follow the way of Jesus Christ, is that not our objective? Repairing hearts and turning them away from all else but God?

Everything taught and done in the name of Islam or Agnosticism or any faith – certainly does not point toward such a Christlike goal, but then not everything that Christians teach and do in the name of Jesus is very Christlike either, is it?

How might people who hold different beliefs from you show you how the Holy Spirit works? How do relationships with those people make your life different?

FOCUS TEXT

Acts 11:15-18 (NRSV)

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

PRAY AS YOU GO

Surprising God, show us who you are through all people. Help us to have listening ears for your Spirit, especially through our relationships with people who are different from us. Teach us not to be afraid of these relationships but to open ourselves to them in expectation of the gifts you will give through them. Amen.