And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you. (Luke 17:6 NASB)
I've always thought my faith would be measured by two things
1. The degree to which every decision and conscious action is made and executed with a desire to please God and remain centered in His will.
2. The degree to which every reaction to external (or internal I guess) stimuli
is a testimony to and about Him.
In other words, My life should be lived in total context of my relationship with God; a life characterized by boldness, courage, and confidence in knowing that He is ultimately in control and will work everything in accordance with his perfect plan. A person of great faith is contagious and encourages others to have faith. I don't think this describes me.
I find so often that God is merely one of our many priorities and like all priorities, we only get to him on occasion. I'm amazed for instance at the number of people who push their kids to excel in school, sports and life, but don't bother to ever wonder if their kids are centered in God's will. Some seemingly are very successful in a worldly way, but so many flounder in marriage, work, parenting, etc needlessly. I've always felt that if I could just anchor my kids in the bedrock of a deep and abiding faith, God would take care of the rest. It remains to be seen how I've done. I worry that we've not instilled practical skills (homemaking, banking, work ethic, in-demand college degree) into my daughter and she isn't well positioned for the workforce or life on her own as a self-sufficient Adult. My son has been encouraged to develop his faith not his athleticism or scholarship and this will handicap him his whole life here on earth. They are unlikely to be successful in worldly measures. I pray, however, that they would lead a life totally devoted to him and in so doing make a real difference in an eternal sense. I'm sure to be gone before the measure of this parenting decision is fully revealed.
As Casting Crowns put it "Let my Life song sing to Him."
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