I was reminded this past weekend of a conversation I had with BJ about 6 years ago. We were out in the yard one afternoon after school picking up the seemingly hundreds of walnuts that had fallen from our oversized walnut tree that filled the backyard. I don't remember why we started talking about love, but for some reason we did. We got into a very heated arguement becuase BJ was trying to explain to me that love is a verb and I, being older, could not accept that I was wrong and so fought him that love is simply an idea. Our conversation went on and got loud enough that we were reprimanded by mom and dad and so ended our discussion. Looking back I can see what my pride would not let me see at the time, at the age of ten, Beej had a much better and deeper understanding of something as complex as love than I did.

This weekend at our college Bible study, we were studying Romans 1. Our group focused on the end of the chapter and ended up having most of our discussion on faith. Romans 1:16-17 says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" We began to try to define Faith and came to the conclusion that faith is about much more than simply a belief. Faith moves you to action. Faith without works is dead, it's about obedience. Faith is not an idea, it's a verb. Just like love. Just like my little brother tried to tell me so many years ago. Just like Beej wrote about so often, we as Christians settle for "faith" that lets Jesus be our Savior but not the Lord of our life. We say we believe but refuse to allow our belief to change our actions. We settle for love that is merely spoken and rarely shown. Faith and love are part of a lifestyle, not a religion and it's our job to show that to the world.

Whitney