Tim here, finishing off this short series:
So if 2+2=4 certainty is NOT what Biblical faith means, what DOES faith mean?
Here are three things that have been strongly on my mind and heart about this. And I think they are very much in line with where Hank was thinking in his comments to the previous post...
1. Biblical faith means “seeing enough,” “experiencing enough” of God to have made it this far to today, and to trust Him enough for what is next.
Novelist and Minister Fredrick Buechner writes:
“Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved." He goes on from there:
"I have faith that my friend is my friend. It is possible that what he is secretly drawn to is not me, but my wife or my money. But there I something about the way I feel when he’s around, the way he looks at me in the eye, about the way we can talk to each other without pretense and be silent together without embarrassment, that makes me willing to put my life on the line, as I do each time I call him friend. I can’t prove the friendship with my friend. When I experience it, I don’t need to prove it. When I don’t experience it, no proof will do…So it is with the Goddness of God.”
Where I do not believe Biblical faith to be about an absolute 100% 2+2=4 type of certainty, I do believe that Biblical faith is about being “certain enough” to get us through today. Enough to trust God for what is next. Enough to get us Home, even if in this world, we only greet that new kingdom, that new homeland from afar.
2. Biblical faith brings a freedom from fear that allows for a calm acceptance of uncertainty -- welcoming it as a force to drive our faith to new ground.
In essence, this idea is that some of what you and I are uncertain about right now is actually God at work helping you doubt areas of your current belief structure you should doubt.
For one example, look at how the Spirit moved Peter’s previously certain faith in both Kosher Jewish law -- and about the impossibility of Gentile salvation -- to new ground. Peter started at a “Surely not, Lord!" phase and ended at "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”
Because Peter was willing to be uncertain and still trust in God, he was taken to the next step in his faith and in the entire Church’s life.
Protestants would say it was a good thing that Martin Luther, and Calvin, Zwingli and the rest listened to their uncertainties about their Catholic environment of their day, and that God used that to move them to new ground, new ways of understanding and being faithful to God.
(IMPOTANT CAVEAT: Don’t get me wrong. I do believe there is a type of unhealthy uncertainty which is mostly fear-based that we sometimes suffer with. But I don't think it is the UNCERTAINTY that causes the unhealthiness of it, but how we react to it. A fear centered reaction tends to lock you into immobility, and I think that is what James warns about.
I don’t think it is uncertainly itself that James warns of – after all, in the previous sentence he promises that if you are clueless, just ask for wisdom and you’ll get it. No biggie. But rather he rightfully warns us of the state when the doubt makes you rudderless, tractionless -- like being tossed by waves --and stuck, rather than to moving you forward).
By contrast Biblical faith assuages our fear, and helps us be secure enough to look at our uncertainties head on, not afraid that they will crumble anything that SHOULDN’T crumble. It frees us to “test everything and hold onto the good,” in the life long process of growing up spiritually.
For me personally I can usually see God’s presence working in my life as much by what parts of my faith I am growing to doubt as much as by the parts of my faith I am feeling more and more (relatively) certain of. One blogger wrote this which is so good I wish I came up with it:
"If your gospel is a set of timeless propositional truths then the concept of "rethinking" your faith, of it actually changing, is a disturbing one. And that's putting it mildly. This is the box that many of us put our faith (and our God) in. ...Subconsciously I believe the church tries to separate the notion of "the journey" from the reality of "change". Yes, we're all on a journey. Just don't try to change anything. I've got news for you: If the view out the window never changes, the car is not moving. In fact, it could even be up on blocks in the front yard, with the grass growing high around it."
3. Biblical Faith is Ultimately Faith in a Person and in a Relationship in the Real World
As I wrote before, faith in Jesus is really that: faith in a living active Person at work in the world. Not to be confused with faith in a formula, or a theological system or a creed. A living Person. That is a huge difference if we let it really sink in.
I’ll close with a story that sums up this point -- and actually most of the points in this whole series:
Author Anne Lamott was journaling during a particularly dark time in her life. Her best friend in the world -- Pammy -- was just diagnosed with cancer that would later take her life. Anne wrote about what faith looked like to her then, during that absurd and terrible and long time while her friend was going through chemo and slowly dieing.
She described her spiritual state with a story she heard from a friend who was a Mom on vacation in Tahoe with her two-year old, staying alone in a rented condo.
She put the two-year old in a crib in a side room with a closed door, while she was trying to get some writing done. Then she heard that the toddler had somehow gotten out of the crib, walked his way to the doorway and while trying to open the door, clicked it locked, from the inside.
Anne writes:
“So he was calling to her, “Mommy! Mommy!” and of course, he didn’t speak much English…after a moment, when it became clear mommy couldn’t open the door, panic set it. He began sobbing.
So my friend began running around trying everything possible, like trying to get the front door key to work, calling the rental agency, calling the manager of the condominium, all the time running back to check in with her son every minute or so.
And there he was, in the dark, this terrified little child. Finally she did the only thing she could, which was to slide her fingers underneath the door, where there was a one-inch space. She kept telling him over and over to bend down and find her fingers. Finally, somehow he did.
They stayed like that for a really long time, on the floor, him holding onto her fingers in the dark.”
Once the child stopped hyperventilating and calmed down for a long time, the Mom once again gave him calm instructions again at how to unlock the door.
Every so often, he’d try jiggling the knob and eventually it popped open. Anne continues:
"I kept thinking of that story, how much it feels like I’m that two year old in the dark, and God is the mother and I don’t speak the language. She could break down the door if that struck her as being the best way, and ride off with me on her charger. But instead, via my friends and my church and my shabby faith, I can just hold onto her fingers underneath the door. It isn’t enough, and it is.”
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