You know what sucks about faith?
That’s all it is.
You can word it beautifully and talk about it and pray for it all you want, but in the end, the scary yet incredible thing about faith is how simple it really is.
The World Race is an intense year of one slap-in-the-face realization after the next.
Do you know how easy it is to claim you have faith when, at the end of the day, everything about your life is pretty much in your own hands? And believe me, I am not excluding myself in this.
For the vast majority of us in the USA, we have steady incomes, good healthcare, nutritious food, abundant educational resources, and retirement plans. An hour or two a month at church and a hasty bedtime prayer about what we want God to do for us is often the extent to which we really think about our faith.
And then I spent three months in Africa, and a good deal of time doing door-to-door ministry. I will never understand this approach, as American culture in general doesn’t respond well to people banging on our front doors and demanding…well, anything, much less a forced salvation prayer.
But in the countryside (which is almost everywhere) in Africa, you simply walk towards the house, shout “You have some visitors!”, and proceed to have complete strangers invite you in for tea and conversation. Small talk was more or less discouraged, and we were expected to immediately begin preaching some sort of hell, fire, and brimstone sermon while hastily convincing non-Christians that, for Pete’s sake, they needed to REPENT! and BE SAVED!
A lot of times, a 15 or 20 minute conversation would end in someone mumbling a salvation prayer, and then calmly returning to hand washing the never-ending pile of laundry or feeding the always-chewing cows. And we were ushered on to the next house to “win another soul!” I personally would have preferred building relationship and meeting tangible needs, but on the Race we do the work we are given and honor our contacts.
So I am just going to be real and raw and probably sort of ugly for a moment. We are supposed to believe and understand that this person just changed their entire eternity; we are supposed to believe that God Himself sent us to that mud hut to pray with that person; we are supposed to believe that Heaven is rejoicing and the Holy Spirit is changing that person from the inside out right away.
But do you know how much faith that requires?
Faith that the person was even really listening and comprehending what we said.
Faith that they really did have a sincere heart change and revelation of the Holy Spirit when they said that prayer.
Faith that we unquestionably know the truth about God and salvation and eternity, and that any and every other belief system is doomed to eternal hell, as we are forced to admit if we believe scripture about the way, the truth, and the life.
Faith that God exists, loves us dearly, hears every uttered prayer, and that every single word of the Bible is true.
Questioning your faith is a scary, upsetting place to be in life, and especially when you are supposed to spend a year 100% committed to sharing it with anyone who will listen.
Ask any devout follower of another faith, be it Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or anything else, and they will look at us Christians with pity that we have it all wrong. They have their holy book, their god, their form of worship, and their unwavering beliefs.
As far as I can tell, every Christian that truly thinks about and dives into their faith has to go through this season of doubt at some point in life, sometimes several times. In those moments, the Bible seems like it could be full of human error, our prayers begin to feel like hollow thoughts echoing in our brains, and worship feels like a lot of people singing with their eyes closed.
But at the end of the day, faith is a choice. We can choose to believe that God is real, choose to believe all of the historical evidence that Jesus did exist and was who He said He was, choose to believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God, and choose to believe that an all-knowing, all-loving God has a plan for our lives.
Or…we can choose not to have faith in any of it and be our own god.
I have heard it said that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian, and I believe that is true. In order to believe there is no god, you have to trust a long, complicated list of “coincidences” that explain everything, versus simply believing that God does exist and is in control.
So I choose faith in Jesus Christ. I don’t have all the answers, I can’t tell you everything about every other world religion, and I can’t tell you every single detail of the Bible. But I do know the feeling of intense intimacy, peace, and worth I feel when spending time with and following my savior.
I believe that God created the world and knows and controls everything in it. I believe that He knows every single tiny form of life in the depths of the sea, and chooses every star that will shoot across the sky every night.
I believe that God sent a real man named Jesus, whom all historical evidence supports, to be the ultimate sacrifice, and that He was crucified as the final atonement for every ugly, sinful thought, word, and action I will every commit.
I believe that when I told God I loved Jesus and wanted Him to be my savior, I immediately became an heir with Christ and God called me a beloved daughter.
I believe that God created me with purpose, that He hears my every prayer and thought, and has entrusted me with sharing His truth with others who don’t know Him.
I believe that God paints the sky when we see a beautiful sunset, and that when I pray for His Holy Spirit and then feel the wind blow gently, it is God.
Science be damned; you can give me a list a mile long of why God isn’t real, but as long as I have the freedom to believe that it isn’t all coincidence, then I will. And if I ever don’t have that freedom…well, bring on martyrdom.
