The question the doubter does not ask is whether faith was really useless or simply not used. What would you think of a boy who gave up learning to ride a bicycle, complaining that he hurt himself because his bicycle stopped moving so he had no choice but to fall off? If he wanted to sit comfortably while remaining stationary, he should not have chosen a bicycle but a chair. Similarly faith must be put to use, or it will become useless.
Interpretation
Faith is only valuable when actively applied; otherwise, it becomes ineffective.
This quote by Os Guinness emphasizes the importance of actively using one's faith for it to have significance. Just as a boy cannot learn to ride a bicycle without practice and might give up if he faces challenges, faith requires engagement and effort to bear fruit. Merely possessing faith without action leads to stagnation and disappointment, likening faith to a bicycle that only serves its purpose when ridden.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire action among attendees.
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.
In other words, we are never freer than when we become most ourselves, most human, most just, most excellent, and the like.
We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in God's dealing with us.
Either we conform our desires to the truth or we conform the truth to our desires.
At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
Today I'm out wandering, turning my skull into a cup for others to drink wine from. In this town somewhere there sits a calm, intelligent man, who doesn't know what he's about to do!
I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
A new day is here. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is unknown. Now is the knowing.
Acquire wisdom from the story of those who have already passed.
When anyone arouses my anger, I will immediately pray for them and regain my peace of soul.
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