A faith wardrobe

Sometimes we make the process more complicated than we need to. We will never make a journey of a thousand miles by fretting about how long it will take or how hard it will be. We make the journey by taking each day step by step and then repeating it again and again until we reach our destination. 

(Joseph B. Wirthlin)

But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise. (Galatians 3:25-27)

Journeys all have a destination in mind. We may not clearly know the destination when we set out, but we have a general idea. As we go along this journey with Christ, we have a general idea of being washed, made clean, getting a fresh start, but do we know where that 'fresh start' will take us? Not always! We might imagine it just means we 'do over' what we haven't done so well thus far. It could mean we take a totally different path than we had been on for a long, long time. When God asks for us to take a new path, are we intimidated by those first steps? Probably, but as we take the first one and then the next, it gets easier to take the subsequent ones, doesn't it? What do we do when we prepare for a journey? Don't we prepare what we will wear along the way? As always, Christ doesn't disappoint in that regard either! He prepares a new 'wardrobe' of faith that 'grows with us' as we continue along this journey with him.

Imagine the clothes you wore as a teenager or young person. Are you still able to fit into those clothes? Not many of us are, but even if we are able to 'fit', do they 'fit' our life any longer? Not usually! We get 'new clothes' that 'fit' our present circumstances. If we work construction, we own a hardhat, some dungarees, and maybe a pair of leather work gloves. If we work in healthcare, we own scrubs, solidly good shoes that take us the miles we walk each day, and perhaps a stethoscope. If we are a stay-at-home mom, we likely have clothes that 'fit the day', depending on if we are cleaning the house or going to the grocer to restock the family's food items. As we grow older, comfortable fitting clothes and shoes replace business suits, tight jeans, and high heels! The wardrobe changes as we 'grow' in life. In much the same way, our 'faith' wardrobe grows with us. We learn to 'put on' deeper, well-anchored faith as we discover new things along this journey, don't we?

Faith is an ever-expanding thing. We don't 'put on' the same faith today as we did yesterday, and it is quite likely the faith we start the day out with may require us to 'put on' new faith as we go through the day. Faith is never stagnant, just as the journey is ever changing. We must allow Jesus to 'adapt' our faith wardrobe as the journey evolves. Just sayin!