From
Hebrews 11:1-4
H,
It is the old question of
faith or works? Is it what we do that matters or what we intend to do? In the
past you know how strongly I defended the intention over the deed. I used the
famous bible line: “God judges the intention.” It was all fine and dandy and
probably true but I forgot that other line, or ignored it because of how I had
seen it misused, “faith without works is dead.” Obviously faith is in actions
as well as in deeds. We are to worship with our entire mind, all of our heart
and all of our body.
It is often automatic. The faith
will lead you to the acts. I cannot think of any single person of faith who did
not find something they were compelled to do. They might do it quite badly at
first, and this is where the intention is vital, but they will often grow into
doing it well, and if they do not get haughty or start playing to an audience
it will continue to be worship. Intention ties the act back to God. Or good, as
it tells us we are in sync with the higher perspective of the things we are
doing. So often we fill our lives with the things that bring instant praise or
prize. Too often we are upset or feel put down because we either expect we
ought to be respected or our intentions should be clear to the human eye. How many
fights are based on the simple premise “you do not understand me.” perhaps no
one is meant to. It is possible that the lonely walk of living for God is a lesson
in necessary isolation and you will get the same shtick that Noah got (“a boat
on dry land, you fool”). That is what living in faith always is; a boat on dry
land.  We cannot see and so we follow. Always,
vision over visibility

The thing is to keep our
eyes above. To remember why we do the things we do. To not get tired of doing
good when we can and to not do good only so we can say or think or feel we did
good. To give to the poor is to lend to God. True religion is to tend to the
orphan, the widow, the needy and the brokenhearted. The unsexiest of tasks are
the ones that have the omniscient attention of God. I suspect that the best
people on earth are the ones doing the little tasks of making individual lives
better in the darkest places on our planet. There will be no Nobel Prize for
them. They do not care. They have their eyes set on the irresistible glory to
come.