Faith?

That's a word that gets used an awful lot, though I'm rarely sure that we know exactly what we mean by it. "Well, I guess you've just got to have faith," we say. Faith in what? Or whom? To do what?

Obviously I know that when Christians say this they mean faith in God. But I wonder how often we reflect on what we're trusting God to do? Is it something that He has promised to do? And if not, is it appropriate for us to trust God for something God has not promised?

I'm thinking about this today because of the confluence of two books I'm reading. The first "book" is the book of Galatians that we're studying carefully at First Lutheran right now. The second book is a recent publication by Christian Scharen called Faith as a Way of Life. What I'm thinking about in particular is the Christ-content that Galatians gives to the word pistis or "faith." Faith(fulness?) is first of all Christ's, and then it is ours. In this context faith is not blind trust or hopeful optimism, but it is conformity to the mind and obedience to Jesus.

I've only just begun reading Scharen's book, but even the opening pages provoke me to ask what kind of faith he proposes as a way of life. It doesn't take long to sense that he is thoughtful enough to avoid any vacuous notions of faith, but I'm eager to see how a Galatians-like Christ-faith will shape his proposal. And I'm even more eager to see such a thing shape our lives.