THE DAILY NUBB

Second post here. Let’s see if I’m getting better or worse, yeah? I took a look at Paul’s second epistle to Timothy today, the second chapter specifically. If you aren’t familiar, Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy and provides good counsel to the young man on how to live a godly life, how to conduct himself in ministry (a fancy word for how we all live out our lives with God and others, I think).

My favorite part of that chapter? I’ll get to that in a minute. First, however, a thought on the old phrase I used as a working title here: keeping the faith. When we hear that, I think most of us get the picture of an individual choosing to persist in belief without regard for circumstances. In fact, we might even get a slight connotation of that same individual holding on to some sense of belief even when things look bleak all around. Weathered, threadbare, beset on all sides by disappointment or even enemies. Read that way, the phrase doesn’t suggest much joy or promise.

But that’s not how I read it. Not after what Paul says to Timothy. You see, there’s another way to interpret “keeping the faith,” and I find this second reading far more compelling. To keep faith with someone means to remain loyal and true. To always be on someone’s side, much like a resilient companion on whom you can always rely. There’s a strong sense of “no matter what” inherent in this reading of the phrase. The challenge, however, is a simple one: I’m not always faithful. To anyone or anything. I come up short, lose heart, wander in thought and deed, find myself daunted by the task at hand. In other words, it’s hard for me to keep faith.

But here’s the great news from Paul to Timothy: I’m not the one who keeps the faith in my relationship with God. He does. Always. No matter what. Paul says, in a magnificent passage, that even when I’m faithless, God remains faithful. Because of how great I am maybe? Nah, Paul answers that part, too, and I’m not that great. Instead, God keeps the faith because to do otherwise would be to deny Himself, to be something other than He is. And God doesn’t do that. He’s the ultimate constant, unchanging, the fixed foot of the compass that never wavers–props to John Donne for this image, btw.

So tonight, I’m grateful that the faith I have in God doesn’t depend on my faithfulness. If it did, it would be short-lived and ultimately hopeless. Instead, the keeper of all things maintains the faith by believing in and keeping me, his incredibly flawed and unworthy child, especially when I find myself unable to muster much.

I told you there was good news.

Kept secure even though often faithless, I remain….

Nubbs