Faith is a tricky thing...

I remember when I was younger reading about how Peter saw Jesus walking on the water, and how he stepped out of the boat and walked with Jesus until he "saw the wind" became scared and started to sink. I remember thinking to myself how surely I had more faith than Peter and that I would never sink if that were me.

The next time I was at a pool. I looked at the water, summoned all the faith that I had, walked towards the edge of the water and without wavering, I firmly placed my foot through the water, falling forward into the pool.

True story.

I was thinking about this because I was talking with the 9th graders that I work with at church. For weeks they had been talking about a new video game that was coming out - HALO 4. I went around and asked them to tell me something exciting about HALO, and their enthusiasm was evident.

We went around the circle again, but the question was "tell me something that you find exciting about Jesus. I barely got a line out of them. When asked why, the open/honest ones replied "You can see HALO 4, and interact with it."

These aren't kids who just came off the street. These are kids who have been in church most of their life and are struggling with a crisis of faith.

Faith is more than a mental understanding of what the Bible says, and it can't be poured into you from someone else. For years we've heard people say:

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God Romans 8:17

But if you read further, you see that Israel heard AND they saw, but they still turned out to be a rebellious people.

And that... is the tricky thing about faith. Faith does come by hearing... hearing the word of God and hearing from God. God has a way of making his word come alive.

So, let us struggle to read the word of God. Not just our favorite verses... read as much as possible... and share it with others.