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I know I usually start out with a witty story or something that is designed to make you wonder exactly what in the world I'm going to be talking about today.  Well, today...something different.  I had an interesting thought while I was reading this passage from Luke 18:35-43 (ESV):

"As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God."

It hit me how fragile our faith can be.  All Christians at some point in our lives have had something happen either to us or someone around us that can only be explained as God.  Now, you may have to stop and think hard about when that time would be...it might not be on the level of a blind man getting his sight.  Perhaps it was finding ten dollars in an old pair of pants on a day you have no food in the fridge.  It might be that phone call for a job that you applied for months ago the week your unemployment was scheduled to run out.  It might be something as simple as your son walking across the stage by himself to get his high school diploma.  It's some moment in your life when you praise the Lord for His blessing.

And then we have a time in our life that is hard and where an answer from God hasn't arrived yet.  And we wait...and wait...and suddenly we find ourselves in a place where we start to doubt things even though we had our blind man moment at some point in the past where, as Romans 8:28 (ESV) says, we know "that for those who love God all things work together for good." We're so quick to write off the trying times as God not being able to deliver even though we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (to paraphrase Psalm 34:8.) 

So I'm not here with a strong message today full of clever allusions to pop culture but rather just a pondering ramble about the fragility of faith and the relative strength of our faith.  As you read this, how easily did those blind man moments come back to you?  Have you been too quick to tuck them away in some spiritual filing cabinet to bring out at revival time but never seem to get dusted off when times of struggle arrive?

Maybe instead of filing them away we should make them wallpaper for our temple of the Holy Spirit.

(On a side note, next week will likely be a Q&A week.  If you have questions or things you'd like to see addressed in the Bible Blog, e-mail me at bb@thebibleblogger.com)