I am troubled lately to recognize a desire for total faith - and really not much at all.
We talked about "faith" in my mtg. with my pastor ("rector"/"priest") and intern yesterday. I said I used to have a broad concept of faith, like you either have it - in God - or you don't - and you're rebelling. But the more people I knew, the more I watched lives around me unfold, the less that vague promise of faith in "god" made sense. What did we have faith he would do, specifically?
I see in my own life good things that I attribute to him... my marriage, especially, a surprise, an uncharted course that has caused me to be freed from my "evangelical princess" mindset. A gift of intimacy, friendship, support to pursue my gifts in a way I wouldn't have with the sort of guys I wanted. I see God using all this for good in my life.
But then, I find I don't have faith He will do for others. What has he actually promised us that we should and can hold on to?
I have some really lovely single friends, and I want to see them be loved, like i am loved right now. It hurts to think that I can't make a confident prediction that God will take care of that...
My first setback was Beth. We were both confident (and assured by many older and wiser) that her cancer would be an opportunity to trust in God, and that if she let him, he would minister to her during that pain. According to her, she wanted that spiritual "peace," and it never came. Her cancer healed, but her confidence in God's presence and care waned and by our sr. year it had dissipated altogether.
This experience started me listening more carefully to the promises everyone seemed to be always making for God. You need to trust Him, He will take care of you. He will guide you. He will show you. etc, etc.
Really?
Arriving at Moody, I watched a friend jump in and out of good men's hearts claiming that God HAD showed her, guided her clearly, cared for her through it all. It seemed highly suspect that He was the one to blame.
I started seeing the promises I had understood to be immediate and personal promises to me as promises to Israel that were given as they waited in exile. Many of them died before they got to rebuild their city, their temple. The land was never all theirs. Hasn't been fully restored yet even.
Have we...been lied to? In the sense of faith in God answering promises during our lifetime?
This morning I was thinking about why Jesus said this:
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry... But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
All these things - clothes and food will be given - how do I understand this promise when there are people (christians too) starving? I don't know. I really don't know.
All I can understand is that it seems like the promise is that God does care and that He says he will eventually restore the broken and feed the hungry with himself and raise the dead to life again. And here we are, hearing that, haunted by that.
In our own aches, our own needs, like Israel in the Exile, we wait, we yearn, we mourn, we hope the dawn will come in our lifetime.
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