Faith

There comes a time in everyone’s life I believe that you have to come to grips with the raw-ness of faith. When it doesn’t matter that you know the verses about it, that you’ve taught others about it, that you’ve sang about it, professed it boldly to non-Christians, or written about it for years. What is faith? Is doubt a part of it? What does faith mean in relation to love? These are game-changer questions. And their answers set the course for your life.

In AA one of the first steps of healing is admitting that he or she is powerless to change their circumstances and that there is something greater than them that is in control. These are broken people where alcohol has very little to do with their problems. This program that has worked for decades and helped people integrate back into society alcohol-free is based on one dynamic principle. I can’t make myself better and therefore I have to believe that something greater than me is in control.

I don’t think AA is responsible for this principle though. They just knew where to look to help alcoholics see their circumstances differently. Faith. The dictionary tells us that it is a belief that is not based on proof. Hmm, a belief that doesn’t need evidence. A confident conviction in something. How can one be so confident and have such conviction for something that isn’t based on anything but faith? And there it is, your impasse. The place you ask faith to either hold your hand or step aside as you continue in search of proof.

I don’t think God meant faith to be a textbook with many facets and layers to uncover and memorize for the final end of semester exam. Why would a teacher give you a test that he knows you aren’t equipped to fully grasp and therefore bubble your scantron with certainty. Faith isn’t meant to set you up to fail. I think God knew when we forsook his trust for our own in the garden of eden that we would never be able to rest in certainty. That the journey would always be hard and the tests never passed. And that just wouldn’t do for Him. We needed someone to catch our fall, to help us through. And so he sent his son. To do what we couldn’t and yet still pass. A savior for us to have faith in. To let fight for us when we can’t. Something bigger than us that is in-control when we are powerless to fix it ourselves.

It is only by faith that we can hold onto to anything in the fury of the storm. I have been a Christian my entire life. I have a lot of head knowledge but not a lot of heart knowledge. I’m currently camping out at this impasse now. And I have feeling others are too, some Christians, some non-Christians. I think we all camp out there at some point. The important part though is that we decide. We pack up and make a choice. We don’t know the road, the bumps, the smooth terrain, the desert, the rain or the end ahead. I don’t think that we can know, we just need to know that God knows and we have the faith to believe him.

How great is our God that he lets us camp and decide?