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I Believe...


I believe... just two words that give rise to an expectancy of some declaration - some statement of personally accepted fact...

Out of some random curiosity I typed those two words into a search engine and a compilation of things came up - from songs to declarative articles from a number of persons and various organizations for my purported and intended edification.

 But what do I believe? I could say that I believe anything. I could say that I believe this or that... but what if I couldn't say those two words? To take it a step further - what if I couldn't use words in any form to state what I believe? What then? How would I convince anyone of what I believed to be true? 

 If I couldn't speak or write a particular conviction, I suppose I'd be forced to convey my personally confirmed bent in some other way. Perhaps acting it out would produce the desired effect and make the necessary transference of my conviction to speak for me. After all, it's said that "actions speak louder than words". If that's true, then what I act out speaks louder than anything I could say with my mouth anyway...

 I think it's probably human nature that our lives are shaped around the things we hold most sacred or inviolably true - the things we "believe" to be true. I could conjure up a host of simple and even some silly examples to demonstrate how we act according to basic beliefs every moment of every day, but if you think even just a little about it, I'm pretty sure that you could populate that list on your own (e.g.: It's why I don't throw big rocks up in the air over my head). So I'm reasonably certain that we can agree on the principle at least in general, that we have a tendency to act on or withhold action based on what we believe, or by some small hop, that we act out our convictions - we act based on what we believe. 

 But getting back to the communication thing, I think that most followers of Christ would agree with me that some of the most important things that we say are those things we say to Jesus. But if we couldn't use words to communicate our belief in Him, what would we do then? If by some chance it's true that our actions speak louder for us the convictions of our hearts, then maybe that's a better form anyway ... but again, if that's true ... what are we saying? If that's true, what did you or I say to Jesus in the last year? The last month? The last five minutes? Are our actions speaking loudly what we want them to say or is there some misalignment between what we say and what we do or don't do?

 I'll admit that for myself, there's still more work to do to perfect that alignment, but it's never a hopeless task as long as I'm committed to willingly submit to His work in me. And for that I am both grateful and also made confident in the outcome. It seems to me that learning to speak without words is a bigger task and also a louder voice than our mouths or our words could otherwise convey.

What do we believe?




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