Not everybody feels this way. Ha, I haven’t always felt this way myself. But now I do.
If believing in the Bible feels safe to you, I am glad. If the God of creation and Lord of life and death is a comfortable place for you to live, thank God for the peace. For me of late, I have discovered a new place in the life of faith, and it is not a place of comfort. Some peace is hiding here, maybe a peace that is unfolding similarly to the way an infant in the womb unfolds: impossibly, confusingly, but surely. It isn’t the peace I previously knew.
In this phase, faith feels like a breath held in, like not looking down while balancing over a death fall, like near-collision, high-speed navigation. Oh, to be like children, unaware of the dangers that threaten! Occasionally, I look down, around, and up. I don’t love heights, and have always doubted myself. People like me don’t join the circus, but here I am on the tightrope of sanity, trying to hold my breath steady and focus on the very thin rope. For my own sake. For those I love.
Experience reminds me that I am not life’s guide. While looking back, I ache and stagnate. While looking around, I falter. While looking down, I stumble. While looking ahead, I am sometimes motivated to continue, but am also often confounded by walls that reach far above my highest ambitions.
God is mysterious, unseen, beyond our comprehension. Most of the time, I don’t see Him working.
Living in faith on this God is the most frightening thing I’ve ever been involved in. Why? Well, for one thing, my faith is wimpy and constantly fluctuating. When I find myself in the torrents and falls of life-gone-wrong, my wimpy faith blacks out, leaving me paralyzed.
I can’t thank God and my parents enough for giving me this: God’s name, the Breath that gives and takes away, that Rock that doesn’t change, the Hope that remains.
The Word and the Spirit remind me that Jesus is not just a light at the end of the tunnel, thank God. Nor is he simply a light above me, revealing which paths I should take through life. He isn’t just a reliable history behind me, or a spiritual emergency responder for daily crises. He isn’t a dandelion wish or a holy bedtime snack. The God of this world is the Alpha and Omega. He creates and sustains. He is above and below, beside and behind. He is through my life. In the end, I believe that He will be there waiting for us, and that we will realize how He has been very much with us all along the way.
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