So it appears that I’m getting older…not tremendously older, and there are many of you who are both older and wiser than I. However, I can’t help but noticing those things that signify to me that I’m not quite as young as I used to be. For example, gravity seems to be a little heavier when I try to get up after sitting down for a while. Also, my new prescription glasses help with both my near and distant vision (both used to be 20/10 back in the day). However, the most obvious example of growing older that I see day to day is my use of the word “thingy” or “doo-hicky”.

It’s to the point now where sometimes I can be looking right at the ‘whatever it is’ and can’t immediately come up with the name for it. It happens when I’m writing papers or sermons, it happens in the midst of conversations, and it happens when I’m just sitting and thinking about things. Further, I can’t help but noticing that it happens to others as well. Perhaps I’m not the only one getting a little older.

I have noticed one thing rather interesting about this, however. The words that I can’t remember…they are always persons, places or things. They are always nouns. I never have a difficult time recalling the word that means to “get behind the steering wheel and navigate in a car” (you know…to drive). I never have a hard time coming up with any other verbs…or adjectives (I never forget the word ‘red’ for example)…or adverbs…or, I’m pretty sure, gerunds or participles but I’d have to figure out what they are to be sure.

I suppose that the portion of our brains that stores the names for persons, places, and things is a different part than the portion of our brains that put together the other forms of speech. I tend to forget, occasionally, nouns, but can still put together sentences and can even describe the noun whose name escapes me.

I was thinking about this recently and wondering what kind of affect this would have on my faith. It was then that I made a wonderful discovery. Faith is not a noun. Faith is not a thing. Faith is an action…it is a verb. And that means that I won’t forget faith! Even as I use the word ‘thingy’ more and more as a placeholder for things like ‘pencil’ or ‘car’, I can rest confident that I will continue to remember faith.

Sometimes, we do tend to think of ‘faith’ as a noun, as something tangible given to us by God. I’d encourage you to not think of faith that way. Rather, think of it as a gift from God, like the ability to run fast, or to solve problems, or to swim or to play an instrument. These are all verbs, they are all actions and activities in which we participate. Faith is exactly the same. Faith is also an action in which we participate.

The good news with that, for me and my ability to recall things, is that I won’t forget faith as long as I consider it to be an action. However, faith defined as a noun can be easily forgotten, becoming just another ‘thingy’ that we used to know the name of.

Keep your faith active, keep it a verb! Put your faith to work!