The Power of Doing
Recently, my father let me borrow Absorbing Spongebob: Ten Ways to Squeeze More Happiness Out of Life. He mainly wanted me to read it because of a section on theology. In that section, there was a chapter called “Believing is Believing.”
I started thinking about what the author said in the chapter. He talked about how, if we truly believe something, our actions will line up with our beliefs. I’ve thought about how this plays out in the church.
We have creeds, doctrines, foundational beliefs that many of us can recite with great confidence. However, one thing I’ve noticed in the modern church is that we often don’t act on what we believe. I understand this is a broad generalization, a horrible stereotype…But, most the time sterotypes and generalizations come from what we see play out over time.
We believe that we should invite our friends to church, but we talk about sports instead of church.
We believe we should feed the hungry and clothe the poor, but we buy a new car instead.
We believe that we should study the Bible more often, but it continues to collect dust.
We believe that we should spend more time in prayer, but watching the Jamie Oliver interview on 60 minutes is more interesting.
We believe “this”, but we do “that”.
We believe that their is good in others, but we focus on the bad.
We believe in peace, but we go to war.
The list of things we believe can go on and on. But, if we aren’t putting our beliefs into practice, are they really beliefs? This is what I’m wrestling with this afternoon.