Thoughts on faith

Olof mentioned "finding rest in the heart of God."  That sounds really good, I'd like that.  I'm not very good at rest.  I've always pushed myself hard for good grades at school and university, there always seems to be something else that needs doing.  And the goal-posts move.  I remember getting my A level grades, and completely ignoring the A and the B, only seeing the D.

I pray in the car probably more than anywhere else.  Everything from red lights to "what do I do about X" comes up.  A lot of the time it feels about as relational and intimate as shouting into a bucket and hoping someone in Antarctica hears me.  I have to believe God is listening.

Faith to me seems more grim determination than anything else, like Sehlat's "fighting faith."  I know what I believe, and I hang on to it when it seems crazy, and hold less tightly when the storm subsides.  Maybe that's the point of the storms.

My faith is a fighting faith -- one that has been challenged, one constantly tested by my feelings instead of affirmed by them, one that must be based in the facts of Scripture and confirmed by the miraculous preservation of what God really wants us to know about Him. I can't trust my feelings. I can't trust circumstances. I can't base my faith on whether prayers are answered or not. What I believe must be based on who He is and what He has done, not whether I get what I want and feel all fuzzy inside.

It was the contrast that got me about answered and unanswered prayers.  Jesus saying "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you," then later, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Thanks for all your comments.  I'll be OK.