Fear or Faith

Tuesday June 5^th, Romans 8: 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  I have heard that the opposite of faith is not non-faith, or non-believing, but fear.  Fear traps us, controls us and sends us down paths of ill design.  Fear controls the electorate and sells ill begotten programs that yield great wealth for a few, great misery for the many.  Faith on the other hand gives us hope, fills our life with possibility and lets us know we are loved.  What faith gives to life is, well….., life.  Faith is God breathing into some lump of clay eons ago and having it come to life.  Faith is nurturing these dirt creatures into beings that perhaps someday would learn to love and accept one another as brothers and sisters all made in the image of the creator and from the dust of the earth.  Faith is those same lumps of breathing clay knowing this life breathing creator is with us and will be with us always, even beyond time, no matter how bad we screw up.  There have always been some down through the history of humanity that would like to combine fear and faith and even some who would like to equate fear with faith.  To have faith you must fear homosexuality, to have faith you must fear terrorism and anyone who does not look, speak or worship like you do is a terrorists.  Fear blinds your eyes to the presence of God in these “others” and not see them as your brothers and sisters.   To have faith you must live right and follow all the rules and go to the right church which will tell you what all the rules are and throw in a little gospel for good measure.  It’s all just 1984ish doublespeak.  You are a child of God, loved by God, saved by God through Christ and called to live as a child of God.  You are not perfect and never will be, but you are loved with a perfect love and always will be.  It is like the difference between loving your child because they are your child and loving your child because they keep their room clean all the time, do all their chores around the house, always come home on time and always check in.  We never do it all right all the time.  I like God’s way, to love us because we are.  That way there is no fear, only faith.