Believing

"When I was a child,

I spoke as a child,

I understood as a child,

I thought as a child"

1 Corinthians 13:11

The other day I enjoyed one of the sweet pleasures of summer.  Well, I know it's not summer yet, but the busyness of the school year and sports have lessened.  Summer is nearby.

So I celebrated the room in my schedule by beginning an overhaul of the music on my computer.   It was a finely-tuned system of categorizing, rearranging, and wondering why I own some of the stuff I do.

The answer to that question, in most of the cases, is that I hate to hit "trash" on a song I might wish I had back.  The irony is that I'm not really like that in the rest of my life.  We don't have room to store a lot of things, so if I don't have a definite use for something, now or the near future, I give or throw it away.

But songs don't take up any space.  At least not space that I can see.  Cyber space is vast and infinite.  Of course, my music isn't really in cyber space; it's actually taking up space on my hard drive, but you know what I mean, vis-a-vis intangibility.

So of course I listened to a few songs that I haven't heard in a long time, to decide if I still wanted to own them.  One of those was a song called "The Age of Not Believing".  It's sung by Angela Lansbury, and I think it was in the movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".  I'm really not sure, because I never saw that movie.  Which is surprising, because I went through a phase in my life when I loved all things Disney.  Which I guess is why I own the song.

And it's a pretty song.  Angela Lansbury has a lovely voice, and the song is written by the Sherman Brothers, who have written some amazing stuff.

Now, because I don't know anything about "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" other than it's about a flying bed, I really don't know what the lyrics are about.  But the song includes lines like: "You're at the age of not believing/When all the make believe is through... When you set aside your childhood heroes/And your dreams are lost upon a shelf... You must face the age of not believing/Doubting everything you ever knew..." 

As I listened, I thought about that phrase "having the faith of a child".  It comes from Mark 10:15, where Jesus said, "Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."  And I thought about how, as we grow out of childhood, we stop believing in things.  Santa Claus.  The Easter Bunny.  The Tooth Fairy {or the Tooth Elephant, in my childhood.  Long story.}

But some people stop believing in everything.  Look at this passage, which takes place after Jesus' tomb was discovered empty:  "...some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened.  When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, 'Tell them, "His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept."'" (Matthew 28:11-13)

These men had not only stopped believing in fairy tales, they refused to believe what was true; both the soldiers and the priests.  I don't know if the truth was too frightening, or if the money was too tempting.  But they didn't believe.

When we are young in our faith, a desire for proof is understandable.  Thomas wanted to touch Jesus' hands.  Gideon wanted to throw down a fleece.  But when we are no longer children, "faith as a child" means believing without seeing.  As Hebrews 11 says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

We are at the age of believing.   Where do you put your faith?

~ "For now we see as in a mirror, dimly;

then we will see face to face.

Now I know in part, 

but then I shall know

   just as I am also known" ~

1 Corinthians 13:12

~