“Take comfort, it is I. Don’t be afraid.” — Jesus
I can say one thing about my faith, I understand Jesus to be with me. And that’s just about it.
And I choose those words carefully. I don’t say that “I believe” Jesus is with me, because sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I don’t even know what that means.
For me, at the heart of all of my fears, I think, lies the unstated, un-faced fear that I don’t really believe in God. I am afraid that one day I will wake up and just not believe anymore. That the difficulty of life, or the evils in the world, or even something I might read in a commentary or text book might leave me with more doubts then I can hold in my head and I’ll just give up. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier just not to believe anymore.
That, I think, is one of my deepest fears. And I have a feeling that I am not alone in that. So what would it look like to face my fear of faithlessness?
I’m not sure for sure, I’m really just starting this process, but I think it might start with realizing that my believing in God, in Christ, in the resurrection, in the gospel, does not affect whether or not they are true or real. Christ is real whether or not I believe in him. Or to go the other way, Jesus of Nazareth died 2000 years ago and stayed dead, just like any other guy, whether or not I believe him to be raised. To put it another way, God’s existence is not contingent on my belief in him.
I know that sounds obvious but I’m not sure we, or at least I, don’t live as if it it’s not the case. I fear that at times we focus so much attention on convincing ourselves that God exists, or denying our very real doubts that he does, as if it matters. I mean it matters to us, and we matter to God, so in that way it matters to God. But the real truth is that God’s gunna do what God’s gunna do, regardless if whether or not we are on board.
In fact, I would argue that very little of real significance in your life or mine is really contingent on your belief in God. The people who love you will still love you even if you lose your faith, the things you care about you will likely still care about even if you lose your faith. I’m not saying that a crisis of faith is not a big deal, it is. But I just want to try and put it in some perspective. The world will keep spinning even if we all stop believing in the one who keeps it spinning.
What I am trying to do is give myself permission to doubt. Why? What does that do for us? If we allow ourselves to doubt then we can begin a relationship with God in honesty. Honestly, I think that the most common prayer off the lips of the truly faithful person has to be, “Lord, I believe, help me with my disbelief.”
I am suggesting that this kind of faith that is honest about its doubts is not just a stronger faith but really a whole different type of faith altogether. A faith that is located in a relationship.
Because if that’s where we are. If we are at the point where we feel abandoned by God (and I think we are all there sometimes) or if we are at the point where we just don’t believe God even exists and we don’t admit that to God, than we’re not really praying, we’re not really in a relationship with God.
So I suggest that what the life of faith looks like is having a relationship with God, even when we don’t believe in him.
And I believe, to get back to the beginning that this is the path to courage. To admit that we have doubts about God, about ourselves, about our relationships, to face them, and then eventually lay them down and not worry about them anymore. Because once we admit these things, the fears and doubts, I think we’ll see that the world doesn’t fall apart – that Christ is still with us. And that should give us courage to face our other fears and doubts as well.
(Excerpts from my sermon at CPCP, July 19, 2009)
