A House of Cards

"God has not been trying out an experiment on my faith or love to find out their quality, he knew it already. It was I who didn't. ...He always knew that my temple was a house of cards, his only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."

I stumbled across this quote last summer in a piece of literature by C.S. Lewis titled A Grief Observed, and can easily say that this quote is one of my favorites. It's the kind of quote that calls you back to re-read it two or three more times. I love that. No matter where I am in my walk with Christ-I find it is always readily applicable. This quote puts into words what I experience time after time. It illustrates a kind of humbling God continually hits his people with;  A kind of humbling that I personally need  more often then I would like to admit. Furthermore, this quote confronts its readers with the hard truth that is repeated again and again in scripture - our temples and our monuments to our faith and love are often no sturdier then a house of cards.

This weekend, I had the privilege of working side by side in the front flowerbed with someone who is not only my roommate, but one of the wisest women I know. After nearly an hour of small talk, she took the initiative of asking me what God had been showing me in my walk lately; a verse I had stumbled across in James came to mind almost immediately. As a result, we began discussing faith and how it manifests itself through action. The verse reads like this-

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him 'Go. I wish you well; keep warm and well fed’, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead". -James 2:14-17

So often, I am guilty of a faith and a love without action. While we are not saved by our deeds, they reflect the heart of a person. Recently, my actions have been saying that my faith is suffering, and that my walk is frail, inconsistent, and dangerously close to non-existent on a day to day basis. I cannot count the number of times, I have told someone I would pray for them and neglected to do so; or the many years I attended church without tithing even once. "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." My faith and my proclamation of faith is meaningless if that, in and of itself, is all it is - just a proclamation. In this way, my faith is dead and my love is shallow.

Just as love is an action and not an emotion, faith is not limited to just a belief. That kind of faith is inconsistent, easily shaken, and shattered. It is of no more use then a house of cards.

Written April 2010