Where Faith Can Shatter
Faith lies in the deciding spaces; the place where fear, questions and hope mix and it will either grow or shatter. We’ve all seen it. There are the disappointed who throw up their hands in despair and walk away, and the ones who seem to only grow deeper when struggles loom large. Faith is easy when there are no struggles, but what about when much of what we thought we knew or hoped for about God show up as untrue? Sometimes the beliefs we hold as true are not but are ways for us to control life in spiritual sounding ways. Faith used as a means to control life will usually shatter in the face of life because it is often faith in the wrong thing.
I was reminded of this again this morning. Last week I was diagnosed with early stage melanoma…again. A lot goes into the feelings I have about this; not least of which I have been going in every three months since my first diagnosis and my skin is the kind of skin that makes noticing anything very difficult. Our fourteen year old son described it perfectly when he said, “Do you feel like you have monsters chasing you around?” After thinking for a moment, I said,”Yes. And you should be a counselor.”
Every morning I sit with God and start my day interacting with Him. It started out as a practice that was more difficult than easy to find time for, but time with Him has grown into my favorite part of the day. Most days it’s just mundane stuff of ordinary life, but when life hits hard, I am always grateful for this habit and familiar place where I can process my fears and pain. Mostly, I’m facing the fact that I’m not invincible, and my length of life can’t be controlled by me. This is true for all of us, but sometimes life circumstances remind us of this and we have to process it all over again.
This morning I asked God, “What if I get cancer they don’t catch and I suffer or die?” That may be blunt and dramatic considering my prognosis is excellent, but it is a real fear for me right now. Thankfully, God wants us as we are and not as we pretend to be.
The answer I was really hoping for was, “You won’t. You will live. I will protect you etc etc etc.” The answer I got was “What if you do?” The tone it was in was not a ‘so what?’ sort of tone, but a real question. One I had to think about for a few moments.
He then continued, “I will surround you and your family no matter what your life holds. You don’t need to fear because I am with you no matter what. I will not promise you a pain free future, but I will promise you a future with Me and all my goodness. A future void of aloneness. A future where I will surround you every moment, and one where I’m closer than the air you breathe. This is a better promise than your health. Health will eventually fail for everyone but I never will. You will have trouble in this life, BUT I will be with you in it.” (Matthew 28:20; Psalm 23:4; Psalm 27:13; Psalm 73:26; Isaiah 41:9-10; Psalm 34:7; Psalm 145:18; Psalm 139:5; Psalm 32:7; Psalm 125:2 etc.)
This isn’t just for me. This is for all of us. This is what is true and what we can hang onto when life becomes chaos around us. If we put our hope in Him, our faith will not shatter. He is strong enough to hold it. He didn’t promise any of us health or a long and easy life, but He promised us Himself. Sometimes it takes a while to see this is a good trade-off.
When we had our stillborn daughter, I had to learn this and it took a very long time. Up until that point, life had worked out pretty well and I attributed a good life to God’s goodness, but as it turns out, I didn’t have a theology for His goodness when life goes irreversibly wrong. Enough things have gone wrong since, for both me and those I love, I now usually just need to be reminded and I remember – again. God shows us Himself in ways we could have never seen or experienced Him without the valleys – even death.
I would love healing and would love to not be surprised by this again and again or have any more scars. Definitely, healing is God’s goodness on display, but His goodness is not only reserved for those with answered prayers. It also meets those in the valley, those in pain and those whose sufferings in this life never resolve.
If His goodness is based on our lives going well, we will never be steady in our faith. We end up grasping at circumstances which will never be sure enough to hold us. Hyper faith says, “This circumstance will be good! All will be well with this circumstance! God will show Himself faithful by fixing the problem!” This leaves no room for faith in God’s goodness when the circumstance doesn’t change, all is not well or the problem seems to get worse.
I believe in miracles. I could write pages of ways God has shown up in our lives and I have even been miraculously healed of something instantaneously. I know He heals. I know He provides. I know He turns things around. He’s done all of these things in my life before, but sometimes He hasn’t. Good circumstances are not the hope we hang onto. HE is the hope we hang onto. He is good even when life is not. His goodness is what we grasp hold of. It is our anchor. Some synonyms of goodness are: generosity, good will, grace, graciousness, kindness and mercy. This is His disposition towards us when we are on the mountain AND in the valley.
Sometimes, grasping hold of His goodness looks a lot like the desperate father with the suffering child in Mark 23:24, “I believe. Help my unbelief!” It may look like a soft whisper, “I KNOW You are good. I don’t feel it, I can’t see it, I’m in pain, I am angry and I hope you are actually good. Are you? Help me see Your goodness.” The suffering child in Mark was healed, but John the Baptist was beheaded despite his faithfulness.
Facing his upcoming beheading, he was rattled and thought maybe he had been wrong about believing in Jesus. He sent a message to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”(Matthew 11:3) Jesus didn’t rebuke Him but answered His question. I am convinced God loves these kinds of prayers. It’s a willingness to be willing and God really doesn’t need a lot to work with. It’s an openness to God along with the questions. It’s a willingness to let God be bigger than our understanding of Him. He just needs a look in His direction, a slightly open space in a heart that wants Him. This is enough. This is mustard seed faith; the kind that grows into flourishing faith that stands firm.
Faith requires belief in a God who loves us and has our best in mind; even in the hard circumstances. This is not in a ‘teach us a lesson’ kind of way, or this thing is *good* thing when our heart knows it’s not. This is the kind of faith that meets our reality in all of its chaos. He is compassionate towards us and feels our pain. He really does see our tears and holds them. They don’t go unnoticed by Him. He is a good God who loves us and is with us – even in our valleys. May we be aware of Him in our lives and grasp hold of Him. It’s okay to ask Him questions, to work out our faith and find out what it really means to put our faith in Him. These are the places where faith grows.
