book excerpt
You've Gotta Have Faith... Like a Child
By Eric and Leslie Ludy
Authors of Wrestling Prayer
CBN.com – THE PLAGUE OF THE GIANTS
I believe the Bible to be true—the entire thing, from cover to cover.
Now I mention this belief due to the fact that there is a vast crowd of modern Christians who simply don’t buy the biblical account. It’s not that they don’t think it is fascinating, inspiring, morally motivating, or ethically grand—it’s just that they say it’s not very believable. As my friend, a self-acknowledged Christian philosopher named Brian says, “I read parts of the Bible and I’m like, ‘Yeah, right!’”
Let’s look at the short list of “yeah, rights” that a supremely intellectual man like Brian can compile from the first few pages of Genesis:
- A woman made out of a rib. Uh-huh.
- A snake who talks. OK.
- A man who lives 969 years. Really?
- A guy spending 100 years building a boat the size of a football stadium. Hmmm.
If you are one who is prone to fantasy adventure, this is good stuff. However, if you are one of those stiff intellectual types, like Brian, who prefers your worldview to fit within the bounds of natural reason, then the beginnings of Genesis can prove an awfully big stumbling block to the old faith-o-meter.
I happen to be a guy who loves logic and rationale, I have a fetish for things making sense, but I also, without the slightest hint of contradiction in my soul, wholeheartedly believe the biblical account to be true. Call me crazy, but to me the whole thing makes total sense. Unlike Brian, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that it says Eve was fashioned out of Adam’s rib. Why should I? To me the Bible isn’t a collection of exaggerated tales and fantastical adventures. It’s raw truth, it’s unvarnished history, and it’s a stunning picture that there is a God that rules in the affairs of men. To me, the Bible lives and breathes. It’s a book with a personality, a voice, and a power to invade the human soul and move it to action.
The Bible proves that God doesn’t just acquiesce to bend this natural physical realm to bring about His purposes, but that He actually delights to do it, and fully intends to do it. And it shows that there is nothing sweeter to the heart of God than to have the people of this Earth submit to Him and trust that He is a performer of all that He promises. He says in no uncertain terms throughout the Bible, “If I say Eve was fashioned out of the rib of Adam—just believe Me when I say it! I was there—you weren’t!”
My friend Brian looked at me with compassion in his gaze the other day and said, “Ludy, I’ll give you the fact that you are sincere—but you are sincerely foolish.”
You might agree with Brian that I am intellectually inferior due to the fact that I take the Bible at face value and simply believe it, but what you may not understand is that my simple trust in this sacred book is one of my secret sources of strength. For this ancient book is mighty, and when you approach this mighty book with the simple confidences of a little child, the might stored within its ancient pages somehow transfers itself into the human soul and invigorates it for heroic living.
So, if you are an intellectual who thinks himself smarter than the Word of God, I hope my unwavering confidence in the Bible doesn’t prove a stumbling block but rather an inspiration as you keep reading. For what we are about to enter into is sacred territory that can be apprehended only through the wide, believing eyes of a little child. This divine terrain holds untold blessings in its bosom; however, those blessings will be gleaned only by those who rise up and claim them with the unabashed faith of a five-year-old.
This is a book about the mightiest men who ever walked this Earth, but this might cannot and will not be had by those who put their confidence in their own strength, their own ability, their own intellect, and their own pedigree. This is a might of divine origin, of heavenly impartation, and it is obtained only after first becoming weak.
It’s sad, but my friend Brian flat-out refuses to read this book. He decries it as “fables and mythologies.” And as a result, Brian will not possess the grandeur contained herein. However, if you are willing to enter into this near-unbelievable story of the divine empire of God with a childlike frame of mind, I can promise you, your intellect will never be sharper and your consciousness of the grand adventure all around you will become clear and steadfast for the immense battle of souls waging about us.
Many historians have chosen to act as if the Jewish Holocaust never happened. And yet, it did. Whether we acknowledge the great and near-unbelievable stories of history past as real doesn’t change the fact that they were.
I’m hoping you took me seriously back in chapter 1 and buckled your seat belt, for we are about to cross the threshold into the Times of the Mighties. These are two generations full of the most inconceivable stories history has ever known—two generations of men who lived and breathed the impossible, the power of Jehovah God and, as it says in the Sacred Book, “did mighty exploits.” These were human beings like you and like me—normal everyday men. But they were men who spent their lives for history’s most important cause, and as a result they were imbued with something super-normal and they lived lives that were wholly inconceivable—lives that many throughout history have chosen to dismiss as exaggerated and overly fantastical.
The stories this book declares are stories I believe with all my heart and mind to be true. So I appeal to the five-year-old within you to rise up, grab five smooth stones, and head out, right alongside me, into the Valley of Elah—for it’s time to pick a fight.
Taken from: Wrestling Prayer. Copyright © 2009 by Eric & Leslie Ludy. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by permission.
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
|