My Faith is Not the Dead Kind

My faith is not the dead kind.

My faith is not the kind that can be contained to felted pews on Sunday mornings before weekly brunch downtown.
Neither is my faith the kind that will only open its doors to those who pay enough to sit in those same felted pews.
No.
My faith is the kind that will burst out of its doors & comforts & securities & pleasures and will pay whatever it takes in money, in time, in devotion, in emotion, in energy to bring the captives home.
To bring the broken in.
To house the feeble and weak.

My faith is not the kind that can be restrained to tidy-edged, embroidered bulletins; it's the kind that cannot be restrained at all because it is wild & untamed & unapologetic about it.

My faith is not the kind that knows the name of defeat.
Oh, it knows the name of pain & suffering & turmoil. It knows the vulnerability of fragile hearts that have bent beneath the weight of burden.
Yes, it knows the bitter taste of hurt.
But my faith is the kind that knows nothing but ultimate victory.
The kind where impossibility is a lie & resurrection stifles the cries of darkness.

My faith is the kind from which darkness flees & mountains quake & glory is displayed.
It's the kind that breathes life into dried, dead bones, building up an army of the broken-turned-redeemed.
Though we be one of tattered uniforms & hearts, dented shields & dreams, we are an army nevertheless, with an unshakable resolve to resolve to never shake the love of Christ.

My faith is not the kind that cautiously barricades itself within the walls of safety; it's the kind that in reckless abandonment pleads to be sent out.

Because that is where it grows.
In the uncertain. The unfinished. The messy. The painful.
These are the tapestries onto which my faith displays itself.

My faith is not the kind that retracts in cowardice; mine is the kind that declares the darkness to be its canvas.

You see, my faith is not the kind that has sought the perfected, but the defected.
The heavy in heart. The wounded in spirit. The weak-to-the-bone souls that are weary & needy & hungry.

My faith recoils at the stench of stagnancy & complacency.
We are the thirsty ones chasing after He who quenches the unquenchable ache for the more of Him.
We are calling to the thirsty around us as we run.

My faith will not rest in mediocrity, but will rise to fear & opposition, declaring victory.
In fact, my faith declares fear a lie, an untruth.
It then defiantly & audaciously & surely sends it back to the pit of hell, silencing its voice.

Yes, my faith is the kind that overcomes & conquers the impossible.
It makes the weak strong & the feeble mighty.

My faith is the kind that scoffs at the pressure of opposition, strengthening in its testing.

My faith is the kind that when fanned into flame, an unstoppable blaze spreads for its fame in the most unruly & untamed way.

My faith is the kind that lifts the broken from their knees & then sends them out to declare hope over the hurting.

My faith breaks the chains that no mere man or set of regulations could ever dismantle.

My faith absorbs the weight of shame & then bestows power upon its holder.

Because my faith is the kind that comes alive as life is declared to the dead.

No, my faith is not the dead kind,
because even death couldn't hold Him.

"Send revival. Start in us.
Send us out in resurrection power.
History's about to change.
We are rising once again.
Send us out in resurrection power." -Rend Collective

Jesus is alive.
Oh church, awake & come alive, too.