Speaking of faith, as probably everyone knows, It takes a certain amount of chance to have faith. Faith is not something one can reach out and touch. Faith is like throwing a pair of dice and hoping it will turn up seven or eleven for a win. Yet you know when you throw them, the dice can come up boxcars or craps. Faith is knowing that can happen.
I went to Monte Carlo once many years ago and went to the Casino. I went over to the roulette wheel and placed a 20 dollar bet on 2 and 22. the wheel turned and it came up 22 and I continued to play, before long I had accumulated 600 dollars. Gambling is a sin I will readily admit, but how many of us do that when we go to the store and buy a lottery ticket? Well I left the roulette table and went to the dice table. My first roll was craps, second roll was boxcars, etc. I lost the 600 dollars. There it is, chance. Perhaps I did not have enough faith.
We all take chances. And what is faith but taking a chance. I once went to the fairgrounds and in looking at the various ways to have fun, there were two that peaked my interest. One was the house of horrors, with the mirrors and various scary walk throughs which surprise the walker, a scary scene, or a moving floor. The other thing of interest to me was the dodgem cars. You know what that is, get in a well padded mobile seat with wheels, which has a speed pedal, a brake pedal and bumpers all around, and a steering wheel, and you drive that thing as fast as it will go (not very fast for safety reasons), and drive it into another bumper car. (dodgem car) that is why there are so many lawyers today, bumper cars.
Well anyway that intrigued me, so I paid my quarter and ran to the fastest car I could find and got in. I already knew about the speed pedal, and had faith it would accelerate to my liking. and about the brake, I knew it would slow me down or stop me as applied. and about the steering I was fully aware. (remember we are talking about faith and how it grows with knowledge). So my first inclination was to put all this faith and knowledge to work and drive this "bumper car into the first girl in a bumper car I could find.
And I did that. It was a pretty girl with long black hair and a pleasant smile on her face until I banged into her car and caused a crash. Just what I was hoping for. That did it. her head bobbed forward and her eyes fixated on me which is also what I was counting on. But this is where the growing faith comes in. My head also went forward as well, but much more so than hers. she was still smiling when my mouth hit the steering wheel. I had to leave the ride when it stopped and put a handkerchief to my bleeding lip. My faith had now grown. When the bleeding stopped, I went back to the ride which now I knew a little more about. I would not hit my lip on that steering wheel again. My faith had grown. The apparatus all still worked the same, I just knew a little more about how it worked.
And before I left Monte Carlo I had improved my luck, but this time taking chances with the slot machines in the lobby where I won about 400 dollars. Faith at work.
Well Paul knew that the people of colossae were being sold a bill of goods, like at the house of horrors, it was going to be fun, as were the dogem cars, but there was a price to pay. Faith in God's work in Jesus is like that as well. It starts out as an intriguing issue which one might try, and as the trying continues, the growing does as well. Soon it is no longer chance, soon it becomes a way of life. Faith , hope, and love altogether will make it happen.
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