Mediocre Faith

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Albert Einstein

This year I decided to do a study PM. Three days a week, I leave the school at 11 o’clock and go to the church to study the Bible in a life applicable fashion for two hours before I return to school. I have come to a much deeper place in my faith as a result of our time together. I have much greater range of knowledge of God’s Word. I have developed understanding of what it means to be a Christian and know exactly the life I want to pursue. I want to have crazy faith that moves mountains and intimate love that longs for the face of Jesus. I want to be covered in the dust of my Rabbi, and I want to bathe in his blood of salvation. I want a faith that moves me to get out of the boat and walk on the water toward Jesus. I want a faith that causes me to ignore the storm because I just can’t keep my eyes off of Jesus. My great desires have always encountered violent opposition from my mediocre faith. My greatest frustration in life.
Paul was an amazing man of God. Beginning as a Roman citizen who persecuted Christians, Paul was transformed on the road to Damascus by an encounter with Jesus. He took the great commission and ran with it—infected by the love of Jesus, Paul went and made disciples of the nations. He loved like Jesus loved, bearing whips and scorns for Christ’s sake. Paul was perhaps one of the most persecuted men in the history of the world. Check it out: In his second letter to Corinth, Paul boasts about his sufferings:

The wording from The New International Version follows: “(I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open see, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own country men, in danger from the Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor. 11: 23-29)

This passage drives me crazy! My mind goes wild with all the suffering and pain that Paul went through for Christ. But even more amazing to me is Paul’s lifestyle! Paul, despite all of the suffering he went through, never gave up on pursuing Christ. He never threw in the towel because he was in pain, or because he was afraid, or because he doubted. No. He pushed through it all. AND! He lived daily with a grace and peace that I desperately long to understand. I truly believe that Paul’s body walked the either, but his heart, his attention, his mind, his spirit was in Heaven with Jesus. When he bore the “forty lashes minus one,” I have to believe that he was staring straight into the peaceful and comforting eyes of Jesus. I have to believe that while Paul sat in jail, writing letters to the churches, that as he penned the introductions, all wishing “grace and peace” to the churches that he was breathing in the air of Life.
I desperately long for this kind of lifestyle. I want to be so consumed by Jesus Christ that I am of no earthly good. I want to be so focused on the Goal that I don’t get caught up in the storms the Devil throws to keep me away. I want to throw away my mediocre faith for the faith of Paul. I’m tired of suppressing my intense desire for Jesus in order to get by comfortably in this world. I want to be a fool. I want to step out of my comfort zone. I want to be utterly out of my mind like Paul. I want to do something radical. Start a revolution. This crazy desire has been building up for so long and I can’t fight it down any more. I’m letting lose!