Have faith

Just have  faith, and it'll be alright.  

How often do we see or hear some version of this thought?  I've thought it before, and chances are you have too.  Well meaning friends and relatives have probably tried to encourage us to not give up, to have faith.  In the Bible, we read stories of miraculous healings and people brought back from the dead, and faith (Matthew 9:20 & Mark 10:52, for example).

When the threat of the worst comes, we desperately cling to this.  If I can just have enough faith, everything will be alright.  I won't miscarry this baby, my child will survive this disease, my mother's tumor will shrink, we will be protected . . . God won't let bad things happen to us because we have enough faith.

Read that last part again.  Have you thought it before?  That if you can just pray enough, get enough others praying, focus on the protection or the healing without any doubt, that God won't let the worst happen?  Sometimes the worst doesn't happen.  The tornado goes south, the surgery works, the bleeding stops.  We praise God for his blessings and the belief that "faith = good things" is cemented a little deeper.

But what about the times when  the worst does happen?  That even with day and night prayers and fasting, with prayer chains worldwide, with never having doubted or worried that God would heal or protect . . . the miscarriage happened, the baby died, the tumor grew, the abuse wasn't stopped, the hurricane wiped out everything.  What then?  How could God let the bad things happen?

I wonder if we sometimes confuse faith in God with faith in his actions.  We read the Bible stories of faith with a narrow focus on the healing and begin to think that we need to believe in the healing and protection, in the possibility of the impossible act itself.  We read  "For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37), and we focus in on the word nothing, substituting in our circumstance.  

Too many times I have done just that,  having faith that the situation would be resolved  in a way that I wanted - instead of fixing my faith on God himself.  And that knowledge is brought to light when the worst happens, when the impossible thing remained impossible even though I had faith.  At those moments it feels like my world is collapsing, like God has turned away or maybe isn't even there, because He didn't do what I believed he could do.

In the book of Daniel, three young men refused to worship the king despite threat of death by fiery furnace. 

But if you don’t worship it, you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire—and who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question.  If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king.  But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.” (Daniel 3:15b-18)

I read those words, "But even if He does not rescue us" and realize that I was putting my belief in the rescue instead of the One who can rescue.  Having faith in God, instead of the action, changes everything.  Because when our faith is in God himself, it isn't bound by the limits we've put on it.  When my faith is in the act of healing or rescue or protection,  then the only way that I can see that faith answered is if that specific act happens.  But when my faith is placed in God himself, as it was for these three young men, then that faith is answered by God himself regardless of the way that situation plays out.  Even if the worst does end up happening, my faith can be answered because God is there as Rock, Comforter, and Redeemer.  Instead of feeling like He has turned his back, I can seek refuge in His arms, knowing that  He is bigger than any situation.  That even when the bad things do happen, He not only can be my comfort, but can over time redeem the bad and use it for good.

Where are you putting your faith today, in that situation in your life?  I gently urge you to make sure it is focused on God himself instead of the hoped for outcome, and pray that you will do the same for me.  And dear friend, if you are struggling today because the worst did happen, know that God is still there, He is still good, and His love hasn't changed.  Seek refuge in His everlasting arms ~ they're big enough to hold any emotion you are feeling.  Take your anger, your fear, your disappointment, your sadness to Him.

 

Transitions and cocoons

I used to travel a lot in my mid-20s. In those pre-tech gadget days, travel was truly a time and space apart.  Once you boarded the plane, climbed onto the train, or hit the road with map in hand, you entered what always felt to be a somewhat sacred space.  No longer where you had come from, and not yet where you were going, it was a time unlike any other.  At the beginning of the trip, your mind would be filled with wrapping up details of the world you were leaving.  By the time you neared your destination, there was space for details of the world you were entering and your mind would gear up for it.  In the middle . . . depending on the length of the trip, there was that space that was just you.  Neither here nor there, just being.

These weeks of January have been marked by transition.  The adjustment for the kids is going as well as could be expected, and they are getting used to new schedules, new teachers, new friends, and new routines.  But at the same time, there is at times a retreat into the familiar, the safe, the expected.  Back in December we had been reading Farmer Boy, but had set it aside for a time as interest waned.  But during this transition phase, whenever a spare moment arises I find the book being pressed into my hand with a plea, "Read Farmer Boy to us?"  The familiar posture of sitting side-by-side and reading brings comfort in an uncertain time.

I have found myself spinning my own cocoons in this transition month.  Those moments right after the kids get on the bus, when the house seems so dark and empty . . . immersing myself in God's word.  He's been faithful to this point, surely He will continue to do so.  I cocoon in my Christmas sweatshirt with the name of my new school written across the front.  It's big and roomy and warm and I can lose myself inside of it . . . and at the same time, begin to take on the new skin of student once more.  At night after the kids are in bed and work is done, I find myself curling up next to my husband to join the Doctor and his companion on another adventure, safe in the knowledge that no matter what evil befalls the universe, by the end of that episode (or the next), the world will be saved (at last temporarily).  My cocoons.

Part of me has wanted to struggle against them and knock them out of the way with vast to-do lists and plans that would make me feel that I was bringing every bit of this new found time under my control.  But I've been experimenting with grace instead.  My lists are small, with just the essentials as mandatory must-do's.  I'm letting myself grieve the stage that is past so that I'll be able to embrace what lies ahead.  We're trying out different routines to see what works.  Learning which elements from homeschooling still work for us now, and which ones can be released. In all of this, I realize how deeply I become my roles.  Letting go of it feels like a rewriting of my whole identity at times. 

But as time goes by, we are making the transition.  No longer where we were, and not yet where we will soon be.  And I'm discovering that grace is good to extend to myself, and it inspires me to move beyond this temporary cocoon.

Learning a new song

One forged ahead boldly with a single focus, nary a look back. As she passed by on her way to new destinations, she waved from the front of the line where she was introducing herself to her new teacher.  No surprise ~ her coat and backpack had been on the moment she finished breakfast, long before the rest of us were ready. 

The other had to warm up to the idea.  Upon waking, he'd declared, "Couldn't we start next week?  I'm not prepared!  I'm scared!"  Even when we joined his class awaiting the teacher's arrival in the lunchroom, he hung back just a bit ~ this was new and unknown, and by default in his young mind, new and unknown = scary.  Seeing a friend across the way brought a smile to his face.  And we laughed when we found out that not only does he share a first name with two other boys in his class, but that their last names begin with L, M, and N.  O is in the class across the hall.

Watching these two approach this new venture with such different styles made me think of the war within my own mind and heart when God calls me to a new & unknown path.  My first instinct is often to back away with a list of reasons why I'm not ready, or must surely not be the one.  I don't have to look far in the Bible to find others who struggled the same way.  But there's a part of me that wants to respond the way my daughter did this morning, the way the disciples did when Jesus called them off their boats ~ to set off with a single focus and embrace the new.

I realize that in this time of learning a new song, I too will need to choose how I respond.  Will I let the worrying side hold me back with my cries of  "But I'm not prepared?  I'm not ready!"   Or will I jump in fully to this new path, trusting that the same Lord who told his disciples,

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear . . .  So do not worry . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  (selections from Matthew 6:25,31,33)

meant for those words to apply to me in my life today?  That keeping my focus fixed on Him will allow the rest to fall into place?