On one of those landmark birthdays, I requested my family send me positive insights about me. I was so honored and choked up by what my loved ones wrote. I so appreciated them all, but one piece really got me to thinking. The comment follows:

"Of course, if I go back in time I remember possibly the best babysitter ever. You are really amazing with kids. Tireless, exciting, playful, with endless creativity and ultimate generosity. And best of all, you actually cared, it wasn't just a pretense or chore. Your name was a bit magical back then, like a fairy world filled with endless fun and games!"

Which reminded me of the time my sister called to tell me her youngest was having a bad day and to cheer himself up he had spoken my pet name for him, as if I were there to give him a hug. What an honor.

It got me to thinking. I want my relationship with God to be like that. When I think about how God loves me, I want it to be like getting a hug. And when I think of Him, I want it to be magical, like a fairy world/fairyland filled with endless fun and amazement! And that's how I feel about the moving of the Holy Spirit. It is so awesome to be in a prayer time that is heavy with the Spirit of God. And what a memory of the four hour prayer meeting and the shift when we clapped and felt the His healing power  released. Awesome!

But if I really look at my relationship with my nieces and nephews, especially when I compare it to their relationship with their parents, I realize it's not enough.

My nieces and nephews love spending time with me, but they have a deeper, stronger relationship with their parents. Their parents, who were there every day; often tough, consistently loving, providing for their needs, discipline, and fun. Not a fairyland, life!

Exodus 24 starts the narrative of Moses going up the mountain to get the 10 commandments. What most people don’t remember is that the start of the trek up the mountain included a feast given by God. It’s true!

Exodus 24:9-11 (NIV)
9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. 11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

So while Moses went up the mountain to talk to God, these men who had feasted with God went down the mountain and back to the people. You would think that feasting with God would have changed them all to devote and mature followers of God, yet within 40 days, Aaron has made a golden calf for the people to worship. And within a few months of that, Nadad and Abihu are killed for bringing strange fire before God, and it was during their priestly ordination!
 
Evidence from the Bible and from life shows that exciting times do not bring life change. Life change comes from something deeper and more substantial than an awesome experience.
 
If I'm honest with myself, I want my relationship with God to have that staying power that only comes from a long-term relationship between my loving heavenly Father and His devoted daughter. I will always long for the Holy Spirit to come in power, but it isn’t the thing I long for most anymore.

We all know what faith isn’t. It's not believing in God, whether that is that He exists or that He will do what He promised. It's breaking the part of the 10 Commandments that we remember or doing something that gets us in trouble. But do we know what faith is? We all know what the Bible says:  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 – KJV)

Recently God revealed to me a definition of faith that has challenged me a lot. The definition He gave me is, 'It isn't faith until what you want, what you need, even what you have to have in order to survive, yields to what God says.'

After I heard this, I started looking at what I was doing on a daily basis to see if my days actually included any acts of faith. After all, there is really only one way to please God:  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 – KJV)

Was there anything I did on a daily basis that made what I wanted or what I felt I had to have yield to what God said? Honestly I was afraid that my answer for most days was going to be no. But with that concern or fear, whatever you want to call it, in mind, I decided to start calling certain actions what they were, acts of faith. So when I want to stop at the fast food restaurant on the way home because I am starving but know that it is not a good stewardship of my money or very healthy for my body; if I choose not to go get the fast food, I call it an act of faith.

It has been very cool to hear myself say, "God, I'm not doing or doing this 'whatever' as an act of faith to You." I find it easier to stick with the hard decisions when I'm looking at it this way, too. I mean if I've given up something as an act of faith to God and then go back on it and do it anyway, I see what I'm doing in the light of truth.

Maybe if we stop worrying about calling things 'sin' and started calling things 'faith' we might be able to build each other up into a walk that glorifies God and is closer to the holiness to which He's called us.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17 – KJV)