Learning the ways of faith

Over the next couple of months I am preaching a series of sermons on David, whose story is told in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. The best book I've read on the David stories is Leap Over a Wall by Eugene Peterson (you can find it on Amazon here). I highly recommend it. Here's a passage that struck me this week in Peterson's chapter on David and Goliath (the story for Sunday's sermon):

Every person learns the way of faith freshly or not at all. We learn to speak; we learn to walk; we learn to believe in God. And as essential as speaking and walking are, the most personal, most significant, most human thing we ever do is believe in God. At the same time it's the most public, the most social, the most political. (p. 43)

Many of us learned to believe in God about the same time we learned to speak and walk because our parents taught us who God was from an early age. Many others did not encounter God until much later in life. No matter when God entered your life, Peterson's point holds true: each of us must learn the way of faith freshly or not at all. Each us us must claim our faith for ourselves, and we must reclaim that faith each and every day.

We are bombarded with messages about what we should put our faith in: money, work, family, government, health, beauty -- the list goes on and on. Learning the way of faith freshly means that we daily choose to put our faith in God. My friend and colleague Mary Rodgers put it in stark real-life terms: it means we "choose hope over despair." It means looking our Goliaths in the eye and echoing David's words: "This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand!" When we choose hope, when we look through the pain and suffering and declare that God is still with us, we make our faith personal, claiming it for ourselves. May you find the courage to claim your faith freshly -- today and every day.