5.14.09
1 Peter 1:8-9 "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
When I was little I can remember getting ready for bed and saying goodnight to my mother. Each night she would tuck me in and say goodnight and go to the door to shut it and I would plead with her to leave it open as much as possible and she would almost always concede (I think do to the fact that I would have screamed like a air raid siren if she hadn't). She would however always shut out the lights and that would send me into a state of fear that was like nothing one could ever imagine. I was so afraid of the dark it wasn't funny. The reason being because I was 100% sure that some sort of undead creature or ghost was going to come after me. It never helped that I had older siblings that convinced me, after watching the movie Night of the Living Dead, that there were really living dead people found in Kansas and they weren't sure how to kill them.
Anyway my only combat against the creatures of the night was to hide desperately under my blanket and leave only a hole enough for me to breathe. Some how in my mind my blanket made it impossible for anything to see me. The fact was that I thought if they didn't see me than they couldn't get me. I was little how was I to know that a small bit of fabric and cotton wasn't keeping anything out. That blanket was used to make forts and strongholds that no weapon could take out, what would keep it from stopping the undead while I slept?
Whether or not the blanket would stop the ghouls and goblins of night was not the issue, and obviously it worked because I'm here today to write. The issue is as a child I was completely convinced that something was out there to get me and I had never seen an undead person or a ghost in my room. I had never once witnessed a zombie attack anyone and further more had never once seen a news report that would support such a claim. It remains that I believed strictly on the fact that someone told me that the undead were real and they wanted to suck my brains out. I was very much influenced by the words of another human being.
It seems to me that this is the way that the early Christian church had to have gotten started. It took hundreds and thousands of people who would take on the attributes of children and just believe the words of others. They would have to take to listening to the experiences of folks who walked with Christ. Jesus often talked about wanting us to be like little children with our faith. He wanted us so badly to trust and believe in Him. Like me with my older siblings Jesus wants us to hear His words and believe in them.
This childlike faith does not mean that we become drones and robots to the faith and every thing everyone tells us. It means that we trust in One, the one who claimed to be Immanuel, God with us. Hebrews 11 talks about faith being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I think this verse and the verse in 1 Peter sum up what Jesus wants for us more than anything in our personal walks with Him. I believe He wants us to have faith that He is who claims to be, and the fact of the matter is that He is a loving Savior with a desire to walk with us everyday.
Thought question: For you what does childlike faith mean you have to let go of? In other words what keeps you from just believing without having to see the actual physical evidence?
Who I Am....
- Mike Abbamonte
- Richmond, VA
- My name is Mike Abbamonte and I live and work in Richmond Va. as the West End Campus Pastor at Atlee Community Church. I did student ministry for nearly fourteen years in some capacity and I truly felt led by the Lord to take the next step in my ministry career. That is what led me to take on the role of Campus Pastor. I'm a sports nut and it would be impossible to bring me down if the Giants and the Yankees won a championship in the same year. My hope is that this blog becomes a place where folks can be encouraged and can just spend sometime reading something that may be enjoyable as well as encouraging and hopefully sometimes humorous.
I can completely relate to your fear of the scary things as a child...I too would hide under my blanket, sweating, yet believing that if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me. My imagination is so strong though, that I do remembering seeing a figure in my room once. That was the last time I peaked out from under the covers. I was almost caught,I am sure of it. Anyway, faith. My faith did start out as believing in the unseen. A trust if you will, of the words of youth camp counselors and new friends. That's really all I had in the teenage years. Their word to go on and a Bible that I really didn't quite grasp its importance to me and my life yet. Over the past 10 years or so, I have many times questioned where my faith lied. If it was strong enough to see me through some difficult time. Especially when I didn't get what I wanted or what I felt I deserved. But now, after surviving life choices, bad ones and good ones, that faith is more alive to me. So alive that I can actually see it work in my life, daily. I give credit for every good thing that happens to God. And when bad things happen, I trust that God is working it out. I know He loves me that much and His plans for my life are so much better than anything I can come up with for myself. I choose to believe, to have faith like a child, to trust, to live freely. Best decision on my life.
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