Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
John 10:29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one."
At some point in our primary education, most of us learned how to graph. Some of us heard, but did not listen. Some of us promptly forgot. Those of us who went on into certain professions continued to graph and to use graphs to represent quantifiable data for many years. Others of us continue today to find graphs especially helpful in understanding quantifiable data and information, in alerting us to changing trends in that data and in helping us to develop strategies to reverse those trends or to amplify and expand those trends.
For some unknown reason, I awoke this morning thinking about graphs and graphing. One particular thing was very prominent in my mind this morning. When developing a graph, one of the first steps is to define the information being graphed, to define the parameters of that information and to decide the most meaningful type of graph to represent the relationships between the information being graphed. As we do that, we must define our point of origin for that graph. A point of origin is that point at which values for all elements of the graph have a zero value.
Quite often on graphs, the x-axis (horizontal) is used to represent time. Then, one can show whatever is on the y-axis (vertical) changing over time. Things get a tad more complex when developing graphs in more than 2 dimensions. Sometimes one has to add a third axis, usually designated the z-axis.
If your mind is now reeling, trying to recall all those long-ago learned lessons about graphing, let’s add to the complexity. Try to imagine representing your faith using a graph. I know, there is that pesky word “quantifiable.” Even after 2026 years of Christianity, we still haven’t agreed upon a quantifiable unit of measure for faith. Units like pound, ounce, inch and foot are already taken. Plus, it sounds silly to talk about pounds of faith or inches of faith. I’ve always been partial to the unit of mass in the English system of measure, the slug. But, I don’t want to even think about slugs of faith!
But, supposing that we could develop an agreed upon unit of measure, how and where would you set your point of origin for your faith, the 0,0 point, or even more difficult, the 0,0,0 point? The time axis is pretty evident. Time would begin at birth . . or would it? The y-axis would represent that agreed upon metric of faith. The z-axis might be used to represent one of the other quantifiable things which has influenced one’s faith.
As a Protestant, Reformed Christian, I would set my 0,0,0, point of origin at Genesis 1:1. I believe all faith, mine, yours and everyone else’s beings with our acknowledgement of God as the Creator of Creation. Implicit in that is God’s answer to Moses’ question. God simply is God. The Hebrew of Exodus 3:14 is a bit complex because the verb tense is difficult. I have read alternatives suggesting God said, “I WAS WHO I WAS,” or even, “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” The Creator of Creation simply stands outside of our measurement of time, since God created time.
Also, as a Protestant, Reformed Christian, quantifying my faith must include my faith in Jesus, the Christ. Do I measure my faith from birth, or do I measure my faith from the time I began to recognize what John 3:16-17 and John 10:29-30 really means?
I was raised in a devout, Christian family. My earliest childhood memories include attending church. In my childhood we attended the same church as both sets of my grandparents and some of my cousins. I remember sitting on the same pew with them. I remember being in Sunday School in that church. But, I now know that whatever units of measure we use for faith, my quantity of those units would be much lower then than now.
Despite what my engineer’s mind suggests, maybe a graph is not the best way to represent the state or the growth trend of my faith. Maybe the only measure of my faith is a subjective evaluation of the life I now lead. Irrespective of that, it is important that all Christians think about the measure of our faith, especially as that measure is reflected, witnessed by the lives we live.
Stay safe, think about the state of your faith, trust God,
Pastor Ray