“Life is hard and full of deep valleys that we walk, run, or even limp through to the best of our ability. Sometimes we simply don’t know why we’re there. Sometimes we don’t know why stinky things happen. Sometimes we don’t know why God doesn’t show up, why our prayers don’t get answered, or why he doesn’t fix our problem.
“Sometimes a surrender is necessary for us to continue in faith … By admitting that we don’t understand everything and by simply trusting God that somehow in some way, and at some time, everything that has happened or is happening in our lives is going to come together for a good purpose.” (A.J. Gregory in Silent Savior, Revell, 2009)
The Message says it well, “We can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good” (Romans 8:28).
This kind of faith is just plain hard to maintain when our life, the evening news, the events swirling around us keep calling out “WHY?” And those of us who by calling or choice are writers, reporter-types, seem to be born with a higher than natural dose of “need to know.”
Haven’t we all wanted to ask: “Where is God at a time like this?”
We asked it after 9/11; we ask it today as we sit glued to the news of the tens of thousands of people lost in the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan; we’ve asked it this last year as too many friends and loved ones were taken from us too soon; and I ask it tonight after learning the brilliant young Assembly of God pastor and Bible teacher died of the horrible ALS disease.
Frederick Buechner wrote vividly expressing our doubts: “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”
“No matter where we are in our individual journeys of faith, the Voice in our soul continues to call us to move out, to go deeper, to explore further, to widen our horizons — to move, ultimately, into a more intimate relationship with God.” (Penelope Stokes in Faith: The Substance of Things Unseen, Tyndale, 1995).
And so it is during this season of Lent 2011, I have chosen to create times of solitude and study “faith” – as much to articulate it for myself as to try and help anyone else understand it. For who can improve on Hebrews 11:1: “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see” (The Message).
Eugene Peterson reminds us: “Our main and central task is to live in responsive obedience to God’s action revealed in Jesus. Our part in the action is the act of faith.”
Thanks, Elaine.
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