How
do you know when to keep silent and when to talk about your faith?
(Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page
1385).
This
is a remarkable easy question, for we all know there's a time to
cease with the talk and just walk the walk—when the most eloquent speech is action. There's a time to
articulate purpose with some completeness and there's a time to roll
up one's sleeves and execute purpose with silent determination. Each
represents a stage of faith. One is preliminary and is the honing of
conceptual integrity, the other is practical and the visible
enactment of commitment. This applies not only to matters of faith
but is a process with broad testimonials from experience. If a
family is planning a trip, there's a time for discussion and
negotiation of interests, but at some advanced stage in the process
there comes a time to set the alarm for wee hour departure. At some
point an identified purpose becomes a duly enacted purpose. A
family's history should then involve not only accounts of the trip,
but the process leading up to the trip. Often in retrospect we
overlook the process that identifies purpose and dwell entirely on
the travel. This is a bias of history that must be resisted.
Yesterday I mentioned the Bill of Rights. Surely their enactment
should not overlook the preliminary coalescence of commitments
propounding the elements most favorable for human nurture.
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