“And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.””
Joshua 4:20-24
I’ve known of God my entire life. But I would say I didn’t begin to actually know the Lord until about a year and a half ago. At the time I was coming from a place that bordered agnosticism. I still believed in a god, but not necessarily in God. I had a lot of questions that were genuine to an extent, but also my attempt to find a reason not to believe. It was a year and a half ago, in the midst of questioning and disbelief, that my first pillar of faith was built. I went to India and saw the goodness of the Lord in contrast with the darkness of the world. I came home with the mindset of Psalm 128: “blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him. You will eat the fruit of your Labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.” I came home still with questions, but also with a willingness to walk in obedience to the Lord and work out my salvation with Him as I walked, not before I began walking. At the time, it was the best thing for my faith to lay down questions at His feet and to walk in faith and obedience.
In that year after, either as a result of, or in correlation with, walking in obedience, I saw the goodness of the Lord firsthand. I had pillars of faith constantly built. I walked through forgiveness and reconciliation in some of the most important relationships in my life, I found constant provision as I fundraised more money than I thought possible, I’ve had days of ministry when I felt empty, poured my heart out all day, and felt fuller by the end than I did at the beginning, I’ve seen the restoration of families around the world, I’ve witnessed the supernatural breaking of addictions, and I’ve heard the Lord’s voice more clearly and seen Him fulfill the promises He’s made. I have seen His goodness. And my faith has grown in response.
But in all honesty, the past few weeks have probably been the hardest weeks of faith in my life. I’ve had questions of faith resurface and this time I feel the Lord telling me to address them rather than to lay them down. I’ve found myself in a place of frustration as a result. My basic frustration has been with His apparent distance. It’s discouraging being surrounded by a religious system outside of Christianity that billions of people believe in and practice. It’s not frustration at being surrounded by beliefs other than my own, but it’s heartbreak at the countless people I meet who will not come to know Him. I feel the contradiction of doing eternally valuable work, yet feeling like the whole thing is unnecessary to an extent. There’s something inside of me pleading with the Lord to just reveal Himself. I believe that God is loving and relational, that’s a foundational part of Christian faith, but it seems contradictory for His existence to be—or at least appear—hidden in the way that it is. Before making the decision to follow Him or not, the first jump has to be made to believe or not. And I know there are some people who can’t make that first jump because they’ve never even heard the name of Jesus, let alone what He teaches. I understand that it’s our role as the Church to go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching the nations, but I don’t necessarily understand why when the omnipotent God that I believe in (this isn’t doubt, it’s frustration because I do know the Lord, and I do know His character) could reveal Himself to all of humankind without encroaching on our freewill decision to follow or reject Him. I know there’s no way of reaching everyone. There are going to be people who do not hear the name of Jesus before they die. I know there’s disagreement in what happens to those people who die before hearing His name, I’m not sure what I believe about this, but the Great Commission does make it clear that it’s of pretty dire importance that the Church spreads His name in this life. There is urgency in making Him known on earth or I wouldn’t be in Myanmar right now. Yet I know that in my lifetime there will be billions who nevertheless come to know Him. And that’s frustrating. It hurts me. I’m talking about it from a logical point, but it’s really from a place of pain. I have feelings of our existence being taken as a game, but the problem is that there are eternities on the line. It’s something that shouldn’t be a game.
I wish I could say I have answers to the questions I’m bringing to the Lord, but I don’t. I’m still in a difficult place with my faith. But I’m also really grateful to be in any place with my faith. Just to have faith is a privilege. I am in a place of frustration, but I’m also in a time that forces me to rely on the pillars of faith the Lord has built in the past. When I talk about pillars of faith, it’s in reference to the people of Israel crossing the Jordan river just before entering the promise land. The Lord dries up the Jordan as the nation of Israel crosses over. As they reach the other side, Joshua tells a man from each tribe to take a stone from the river and to stack them on the other side. The stones are a symbol of what the Lord‘s faithfulness to them. When future generations look on the pillars, they’re reminded of the time the Lord brought the people out of Egypt, the time they ate manna from heaven, and the time of following clouds of fire through the night. Each of these were moments of the Lord’s intervention for the building of Israel’s faith. The interesting thing is that they don’t build the pillars after taking the promise land. They don’t build them after victory, they build them before the war for the promise land as they look back on the previous times of doubting and distress that the Lord has sustained them through. It’s both a recognition of what the Lord has done in the past, and an assurance that He’ll bring them through their upcoming battle for the promise land.
Ecclesiastes 1: 9 & 10 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say ‘Look! This is something new?’ It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.” There is nothing new under the sun. The questions I have have been asked for thousands of years. David and the Hebrew poets wrote about them in the Psalms. Solomon (I think that’s the consensus about the author?) wrote about them in Ecclesiastes. People much further along in their faith have wrestled through the same questions and come out on the side of faith.
1 Samuel 17: 36 & 37 “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” I’ve had questions in the past, the Lord has brought me through. If the Lord has rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, He will rescue me from this.
There are two main jumps in the Christian life: the jump of belief and the jump of covenant. That doesn’t mean faith becomes blind after those jumps have been made. I’ve made both of those jumps and I’m still working out my salvation daily. I still have hurts and questions, but the whole point of faith is putting your hope in something that is true and life-bringing through times of questioning. Christianity does not mean being intellectually dishonest. It doesn’t mean avoiding questions. But it does mean not entering every question from the view of a nonbeliever or from the view of a new believer. If the Lord has given you pillars of faith, then stand on those. If He’s brought you through wilderness, from under the paw of the lion or the bear, if He’s brought you through redemption and reconciliation, then hold onto to that. Build your pillars of faith before war, not only after victory.
