Where is your faith? It is a daunting question. While our minds perhaps jump to the abstract, "how am I doing with faith?" there are different questions I hear there.
Where? Is my faith in a box at church? Is my faith in my back pocket? Is my faith in my house and all my stuff? Do I carry it with me or leave it at home? Is my faith on loan from my parents and external sources? Is my faith my own? Is my faith a gift? Is it something I have earned with good works? Where is my faith?
I'm good at asking questions. I'm not always good at answering them. That wonderful gift gave me the ability to get a couple of degrees in theology. But, it doesn't make me a wiser, mature spiritual person. It doesn't make me a good pastor or person. My faith, at its deepest, is in the unruly, unyielding, unpredictable holy spirit of God. It is that spirit that disarms my false sense of mastery, disintegrates my neatly formed questions, and challenges me to let go and be:
be still and know that I am God.
Some days all I can hold on to is that assertion that
God is and I am not (not God, that is). I am creature, human, limited, flailing about in the sway of life. My faith is in that which I cannot master, reproduce, control, manipulate, fool, or outlast. And, yet, I try to do all of these things. My faith is in the people of God as broken as we are. My faith is in the fleeting, often ill fated nature of this life. My faith is in resignation, surrender, and being emptied.
We like to think that we would have been different out there in that boat with Jesus. But, I doubt I would have. When the going gets tough, I forget and I fear, I entertain anxiety, I seek control and predictability. I seek comfort. C.S. Lewis' charge that we try the impossible rings true: we try to remain ourselves, with happiness as our personal aim, while also wanting to be "good." I think my quest for balance resides in overcoming this dualism: how can I be good, content, and serene in all moments of my life? How might I transcend this pursuit of happiness?
I will never be wholly successful of my own volition. My faith will precede me, beckon me, and elude me. Perhaps my faith lies on the horizon and I run to meet it. I pray to rely on the source of all peace and true comfort on this journey through the storms and stillness of life.
I've heard it said; we hold beliefs as a consolation, a way to take us out of ourselves. Personally, I think I only need very little faith because I know where I'm going and how this story may end. As long as my will remains strong and I maintain my self-control I should be fine. If I don't submit to too many diversions and indulge in too many unnecessary or bizarre things I should be alright. I'm not saying I won't indulge a little, we only have one life to live, I just won't submit to the powers of those places. I have a pretty good record thus far of holding the line.
ReplyDeleteThere always is the Blessed Assurance.
You sound very confident in yourself, in your will. How does this translate to faith?
DeleteI don't know what to say really. I'm not the kind of person who pretends to be an authority. Truthfully, the value I gain from these conversations are to communicate with the church in a semi-intimate way; yet sometimes I think it may do more harm than good? Maybe not.
DeleteTo your point though, Faith is simple. I don't question anymore, the questions have burned out of me. Life now is a state of doing and not doing. I live by acting. I have the hope that my actions will bear fruit in this world and in the world to come. That is all.
Perhaps my faith is packed away in a box with other childhood things. "When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things." I Corinthians 13:11.
ReplyDeleteChildren often have faith that doesn't question, that entertains no doubt. They believe equally in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and God. What has become of my faith now that I am an adult? How has it changed?
I view faith as trusting in something, believing in something that I cannot fully control and may not fully understand. For example, I have faith that the sun will set this evening and rise again tomorrow. I have no control over the rising and setting of the sun, though I have some understanding of it. I have faith that when I fall asleep this evening, I will awake again tomorrow and will be the same person I am today. Faith in the rising and setting of the sun, in sleeping and waking again, comes from many years of observing the regularity of the sun and of waking following sleep. While I recognize that it is fully possible that the sun won't rise tomorrow and that I won't awaken, or that I might awaken but be a different person, I have faith.
What about faith in God? "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 I have not seen God, but I hope for God. My conviction is not always strong. I am not always assured. I often doubt. I think, as adults we often question and doubt those "things not seen." We have more faith in ourselves than in God. How can I overcome my doubts and strengthen my faith in the omnipresence of God?
I pray along with the father who brought his ill son to Jesus: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." Mark 9:24
I would like to share something I read ages ago when I used to subscribe to "The Lutheran":
DeleteFAITH IS BORN IN DOUBT. Something to think about.
Yes. I don't think faith and doubt are mutually exclusive. In fact, I think that if we are honest with ourselves, most of us have doubts at times.
Delete