When the Rubber Meets the Road

Have you ever had one of those experiences with telephone customer service?  You know the ones I'm talking about, where a simple question turns into a giant puzzle? Where you get transferred from customer service to billing to account management and then back to customer service? Somewhere in the middle of this, you just want to throw your phone out the window or hang up, but you know that if you do it will take even longer so you hold. It never fails that while your on hold a sweet little message comes on to say, "This call will be monitored for quality assurance to provide you with the best service." The best service? Yeah right, you have just wasted 45 minutes of your life and talked to four different people who told you four different things. The company says they believe in providing the best service, but when the rubber meets the road they fail at it.

Is not our faith like this sometimes? We say we believe in this or we believe in that, but what do our actions show? What do our inner thoughts reveal? Do our feelings betray what we claim to believe? In my own life, I recognize a disconnect. I say I believe something, yet my inner, subconscious, unspoken, thoughts reveal an entirely different belief. I find my actions or feelings, governed by these subconscious beliefs rather than my spoken beliefs. It is almost as if I hold within two theologies: proclaimed theology and working theology.

For instance, I say I believe God is powerful, sovereign over all creation. Yet, I catch myself feeling hopeless in situations, thinking that there is no solution or way out. I find my self attempting to do whatever I can to make something happen or solve the problem. This all conflicts with my proclaimed theology "God is powerful and sovereign." My working theology puts God in a box by allowing a situation to seemingly be impossible. It demonstrates the belief that I have more power than Him as I rely on my own strength in desperation.

It's a struggle to align my working theology to my proclaimed theology. In my feelings, my thoughts, my actions, I see where I fall short. What I truly believe is not in my words, but in these. I find myself shamed when this truth is revealed. There is a battle within me between these two theologies. How I long for them to be one! This discrepancy hinders my testimony to the world.  O that God may have grace as I strive to unite my proclaimed theology with my -- thinking, feeling, doing -- working theology!! When the rubber meets the road, I do not want to fail, I want to live what I believe so that Christ might be glorified.

"So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James 2:17