My Multiple Personalities

I have a secret. I have multiple personalities. I have named them Peta & Macie, after the apostles that they resemble, Peter & Thomas. (Of course, since Peter & Thomas also had multiple personalites, you can see the roller coaster ride on which I live.)

Peta is the me who wants to run with the big dogs. She wants to run off to the mission field and ignore everything else. She likes to talk the talk, but her walk is sometimes more like a crawl. There are times that my faith is strong enough to walk on water, like Peter's. And quite often, that's when I begin to sink--not because the faith is unwarranted, but because I can't keep my focus where it should be. There are times when I want to deny Christ because I'm afraid of the repercussions. Unlike Peter, I don't actually fear for my life, I fear losing control of my life. I also fear that I won't be able to live up to my expectations of myself and will end up being a poor example of Christ. So, in that fear, I sometimes wish I could deny Christ, but I am thankful that I can't anymore. I did for a while: I ran from him and denied him and turned my back on him. But he pulled me back into his arms, and I am also thankful for that.

When I think about those 8 years without Christ, I choose think of my other personality, Macie. I love the story of Thomas because it is so comforting to me. I love to recall that in John 11:16, Thomas urged the other disciples to follow Jesus to Judea, where Lazarus was dying, and where Jesus had almost been stoned to death, saying "Let us go also so that we may die with him." I imagine this exasperated sigh, "Okay, fine, Jesus. If we can't talk any sense into you, we may as well all go." So great was his love for Christ, he was willing to go back to Judea, knowing that they would probably all be killed. It's an interesting picture of faith: he had faith that in death he would be redeemed through Christ, but not so much faith in Jesus' ability to prevail in life. Wow, I can relate. And then, just a little while later in John 20, we see Thomas's crisis of faith. He just could not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead without touching his wounds. You know what I find comforting about this? That Jesus had enough compassion to go to Thomas, to let (no, urge) Thomas to touch his wounds for proof. Another wow. And then Jesus said this: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And that's when I remember that I'm not Thomas at all. I am one of the blessed ones who have not seen and yet have believed.

My faith is so strong when it comes to questions of death: I know that when I die I will go to heaven, I will live with Christ. But when it comes to questions of life, my faith tends to fall a little flat. I need to live with Christ NOW. So, I take these lessons from Peter and Thomas: When I feel myself sinking in life, I need to get my focus on Christ. And when I feel my faith wavering, I need to ask God to come to me and show me what he knows I need to keep going. And I always need to remember that I'm one of the blessed ones, not because I live in the United States and have a home and a car and a great church, but because I have been given the opportunity and the privilege of believing without seeing.