Faith.

Gifford wants to share this article with us:



One day, Jesus talked about eating His flesh and drinking his blood. This was a freaky and disgusting idea, to say the least; and it caused a mess. For the Jewish audience that He spoke to, it was customary that certain animals were unfit for eating. So needless to say, human flesh wasn't on the menu, either. I can just imagine what the dissenters were muttering to each other under their breath: "That Jesus dude wants us to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Quick, let's get outta here!" It didn't make sense for non-vampires and non-cannibals! And so, many of Jesus' followers left Him and returned to their former way of life.

Jesus proposes a lot of uncomfortable ideas. And so, a lot of people will keep a safe distance for one reason or another. Close association with Jesus is cheesy, controversial, weird, uncool, choose your own label. Forget that what He teaches is revolutionary and world-changing. Forget that those who have followed His example have impacted the world immensely. Forget about salvation and redemption and actually living for something other than yourself. If I can't get my mind around this difficult thing God requires of me, I'm walking away.

And I don't mean literally walking away from Church or your community. I think that a lot of people within the Church and religious communities have already abandoned Christ by choosing to not be associated with Him and the lifestyle He calls us to live. And by lifestyle, I don't just mean "not getting drunk, doing drugs and having premarital sex." We abandon Him by being selective about what we will follow. Because it's far easier to wear the Catholic/Christian label and act like we're doing alright, than actually try to live like Jesus did and do what He said.

I wish we'd understand this about faith: you won't understand everything. The very nature of faith is that you don't understand everything about that which you believe in. The very reason you need faith is that you don't get it. I mean, who really understands everything about God? Who really understands everything about the world? Having faith presupposes that I don't understand everything, and I don't need to. All I need to know is that Jesus is God, and I've got to follow what He's saying.

If the "walkers" had stuck around they might have understood the beauty of it all. But they didn't. And today, we're left with a challenge: when it gets difficult, will I walk away? Or will I have the faith to stick around and walk on?



Then many of the disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"... As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
John 6:60, 66