Jesus Freaks

I know you may be sick of my faith/Ian posts, but oh well, here's another one.

A few months back I was telling you about a international, inter-denominational bible study that I was apart of, and that we were reading the book of Matthew. Well, last night was the final night of that bible study, and it was referred to as "Share Night". Anyone that wanted to speak about how they had been helped, or what they learned by reading the book of Matthew, was encouraged to share. I went with to Share Night, with the intention of sitting back, listening to the comments, and absorbing the positive energy, if you will, but I did not have any intention of speaking.
I started the night just as I planned. It was amazing to hear all of these people talk about how reading a book of the bible, transformed their thinking, their behavior, and their lives. It was quite inspiring. About a quarter of the way through the evening, I began reflecting, generally, on the things that had helped me while reading the book of Matthew. When the night was about halfway done, I began to identify specific things from Matthew that I felt I'd been blessed by, and when the evening was nearing a close, I felt my hand raise in the air indicating I wanted to speak. Now, I don't know what I looked like on the outside, but on the inside....

<Internal Dialogue>

"What the hell am I doing? Maybe if I put my hand down right now she won't see me. Crap, she already saw me and is heading my way. What the hell am I going to say? Ugh, I'm in church, I probably shouldn't be saying thinking hell. Aww, whatever hell is a biblical term, why shouldn't I ..." (the microphone is now in my hand).

</Internal Dialogue>


Now honestly, I don't remember the exact phrasing of what I said since I free styled it, so what you will read here is not a regurgitation of what I said last night, but a detailed expression of the message that I was trying to get across, minus the tears (yes, there were tears).

******

The biggest thing that struck me about the book of Matthew was the power of faith. I'm not talking about faith in going to heaven after I die, but faith about the here and now. That when circumstances look their worst, I can know, trust, and believe that things will turn out, not just OK, but great. The reason I believe that to be true is because of Jesus. I read story after story, where Jesus said something to the effect of "Your faith has healed you", "You are blessed because of your faith", or "Your faith has saved you". The written words of Jesus made me believe that there is something very powerful in believing; something very powerful about the thoughts that I allow to enter my mind. He made me believe that when I prayed for Ian's healing, it was just a little more than lip service, if I didn't choose to believe that God not only could, but would do what I was asking. His words helped me to understand that there is something amazing about having other like-minded people praying, sending out positive energy, or whatever you want to call it, with the expectation of success. That was what I took away from Matthew.

******

Now I know someday there may be someone that stumbles across my blog that completely disagrees with what I'm saying, and as proof, can back it up with a painful story that will make me think about rejecting my previous paragraph. So whoever that is, all I can say is, I'm sorry. I don't pretend to understand, or imagine I can explain all of the ugliness and hardships in this world. I just want to propose that there is something undeniably powerful about the thing that we call faith.