Faith is Running Blind

“What am I supposed to do about this?” my wife asked me, almost welling up with tears. “You’re suppose to have faith in God, Honey.” Resolute in my opinion, I listened as she continued her lament about a problem she was facing head-on. “Honey, listen,” I said to her in great earnest, “you don’t have to worry about it. Look, it’s like this: picture what you’re about to do as the first bike ride you made as a kid….” I went on to tell her that the picture of her father holding the back of the bicycle was truly a representation of Christ in its purest form. No more would Christ allow us to falter than would her own father let go of that bike and allow her to meander aimlessly into traffic. She seemed to be growing more comfortable, and I grew more proud of my answers and illustration by the word. We tend to do that, don’t we? We enjoy reveling in our own successes.

The next day I fell apart.

I have faced a few ominously daunting tasks over the past few months. I was reprimanded at my job for a silly mistake on my part; I received into my care a client possessing great status (as well as a reputation for being meticulously detailed in his requests); and, not the least of these, I bought our very first home. For the preceding months I had been carrying my own burdens like a champ – ever doughty in my new-found diligence and abilities, I treaded on through my own valley, giving no thought to any monster looming ’round the bend. The rubber had indeed met the road, and somehow I had miraculously kept the vehicle of life under control. Then it all hit me on one afternoon, as I drummed along to the new song I was proudly piecing together.

When my wife arrived at our new home, she found me sitting precariously in front of my computer, my right leg bouncing up and down like a jackhammer out of control (a sure sign of stress and anxiety for me). Having dealt with my anxiety disorders for the last three years, she had learned to read the signs. “What’s wrong, Honey?” she asked carefully. I exploded like the ticking time bomb I was. “It’s all just too much,” I said with frightful exuberance and volume, “too much for me to handle. I swear I can’t take just one more thing right now. Not one more, I tell you!” Ever so calmly she coaxed me into explaining my problems to her, and she needed not even tell me of the situation’s irony. It seemed as though this would-be preacher rarely practiced his own sermons.

Shortly thereafter, Michael, a good friend of mine, and I had a discussion on the very issue of faith. Michael is almost sage-like in his thoughts about life, faith, and so many other areas of deep thought. He and I differ on many of our ideals, yet I do not scoff at the wisdom of one I disagree with; there is something to be learned from everyone. I am Western in my religious beliefs, if one should corner me on the topic. I believe Christ to be the only way to Heaven. I believe that not all religions can be correct; someone is going to show up “in the wash”, as my grandfather used to say, as wrong. In the latter statement, Michael and I agree, but in the former, about being Western in beliefs, we part ways. Michael is angled more toward the Eastern influence. Yes, he believes in Christ, but he often finds himself disagreeing with the semantics of Western religion. Possessing these

Eastern traits, Michael tends to focus more on the ideal of Christ being our model to emulate in regards to reconnecting with God. I, however, focus on the Being of Christ rather than centering myself around anything ideological: He is, was, and always will be the Only Son of God; He was made fully human, yet remained fully God; He never lacked, nor revealed anything in His nature that contradicted His Heavenly Father, etc. Even so, as to many of the more detailed semantics of the issue, Michael and I may agree more than I know. I still find Michael rich in useful words concerning faith.

Though Michael and I disagreed, what he did was infinitely more important than proving any point, or attempting to get either to see the other’s view as correct: Michael spurred me on to think more intently about my own Faith in Christ as my Lord and Savior, and how I approach it.

Christ was the ultimate teacher. He used words that meant so much to the people of that day. He used classical illustrations that, after many years, still hold meaning and application for those of us dusting off our Bibles and searching for hope in a cold world. I suffer from real issues of worry and anxiety – some chemical, and some brought on by poor thought processes that I allow myself to fall into. In respect to worry and how it correlates to and is eradicated by Faith, Christ used a picture-perfect illustration to define His wisdom and experience in this area:

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” [1]

Nearly anyone can understand the correlation between birds living life with no regard for daily sustenance and how Christ wishes us to view our relationship, and Faith, in our Heavenly Father.

As Michael and I continued to discuss faith, the issue of belief came into play, and I began to understand something that for most is not rocket science. Nonetheless, for myself it was a grand departure from my habitual way of looking at God’s love more as a religion than a relationship. I began to understand, from Michael’s words and from the Scriptures themselves, that Faith is not entirely about belief. James sums it up quite well:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” [2]

If the devils, who long ago lost any semblance of Faith in God (or indeed never had it), then what was I, professing Christ as my Lord and Savior, doing by just believing in Him? I suppose the short answer could be, "Very little."

What Christ has chastened, torn down, and rebuilt in me over the past three years has been my grossly incorrect thinking about God, and specifically, how I had cornered Him into an easily categorized and labeled essence, able to be shelved and unshelved at my least whim of fortune or despair. Christ provisioned me with much potential, and He wanted it to surface. As I worked through my own battles with God, with His very existence, with existential, agnostic, and absurdist philosophy, and with Biblical relevance and interpretation, I began to realize that God was everything He told me He was and so much more! I began to realize that, if for no other tangible reason, I was worth infinitely more than the sum of my parts simply because I was God’s own elect by His Grace. This final piece of this part of my training (I say “this part” in an effort to make you understand the teaching never ends, just stages of it complete and come to fruition) was to move me to realize what true faith is.

And how simplistic Faith truly is! Yet, in tandem, how difficult and mind numbing it is to grasp for one such as myself. Faith is beyond belief. Faith is truly “the evidence of things unseen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith is a concept I have only truly just began to grasp, but I feel now that I have grasped the skirts of its inner-workings, I will see it grow and grow, ever-feeding on Itself as I realize its true potential, and my own.

I call on Petra lastly to beautifully illustrate Faith from their song, “Beyond Belief”:

There’s a higher place to go, beyond belief, beyond belief
Where we reach the next plateau, beyond belief, beyond belief
And from faith to faith we grow
Towards the center of the flow
Where He beckons us to go, beyond belief, beyond belief

Leap of faith without a net

Makes us want to hedge our bet
Waters never part until our feet get wet

There’s a deeper place to go
Where the road seems hard to hoe
He who has begun this work won’t let it go [3]

Footnotes:

    [1] Matthew 6:25-27, NIV
    [2] James 2:19, KJV
    [3] Petra, Beyond Belief