Ever feel like your faith isn’t “working?” I’ve been struggling along with everyone else with all the turbulence, violence, shortages, loss of life, and fears. We’re running out of hope. It’s easy to question, “Where is God in all this? And why isn’t my faith working?”
When everything and everyone you hoped in and counted on most of your life has collapsed beneath you, you wonder if it’s safe to go to sleep at night, or wake up in the morning. Many of us instinctively turn to God for answers, help, and hope. To FIX it all! And many others turn away from Him in anger and resentment. How could I trust a God who allows pain, evil, injustice, and tragedy?
From the beginning, every generation has wrestled with these questions. Even those of us who seem to have a “strong faith.” There are two things that have helped me recently: taking a fresh look at faith, and then closely examining my own.
WHAT IS FAITH?
A typical definition might be “Complete trust, confidence, or strong belief in someone or something.” People say, “Just have more faith.” But faith in and of itself has no value.
No matter how much faith I have in that bridge I cross, my only hope is in the bridge itself. Will it hold me up securely? Am I safe? I need to know it’s the reliable way, that I can believe in it, and that my life will be safe as I cross. And even with just a teeny bit of faith, if the bridge is sturdy it will carry me safely and successfully to the other side.
Faith, a gift from God, is not a feeling that can be mustered up. It is action. Taking steps based on who or what we believe.
The only value of faith is the reliability of its object.
WHO AND WHAT AM I TRUSTING?
Many of us have grown up in a culture where we really had little need to trust God for temporal things. For the most part, we had a stable government, decent economy, plenty of food, healthcare options, medicinal cures, jobs, retirement accounts, police protection, military protection, schools, travel, social events, and freedom. We have by default placed our faith in these weak, unreliable, and temporary things. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that we now see these broken bridges are not safe to cross.
Faith is not just wishful thinking. It is not placing our hope in what WE think God is like, or what He should do for us. We must seek the truth He has revealed to us, and place our trust in what He has said. What He has clearly promised.
Scripture shows us that our faith has value when it is placed in God and His Word:
“Blessed is she who believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:45)
“We…according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)
“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised.” (Hebrews 10:23)
So if faith can’t be contrived, how do we get it? Written from a prison cell while suffering for his faith, Paul wrote: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). The more we read God’s Word, the more we will grow to know Him, and learn what He promises. A good place to start is the gospel of John, the book of Romans, and Hebrews chapter 11.
When God and what He has said is the object of our faith, then and only then do we have real hope.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). He IS the Bridge!
When we put all our faith in Him, nothing may change around us, but WE will change. We will have a reason to be able to sleep at night, and to get up in the morning. And ultimately when our Savior takes us Home to heaven, we will no longer need faith. For He is the beginner of it and the finisher of it, and the only One worthy of it!
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For a more detailed Self-Care Checklists for Survival in times of loss, divorce, grief or trauma, see Formerly A Wife, Goodbye for Now, and Love Our Vets: Restoring Hope for Families of Veterans with PTSD.
