What does it mean to have faith in God?
At first sight this seems a pretty basic theological
question, but my pastor doesn’t seem to have the answer. He’s too busy telling
us jokes, anecdotes, and regaling us with tales of his latest cruise. Webster’s
Dictionary defines faith as: ‘A complete trust or confidence.’ And it’s not
that far off. Having faith in God means to not only trust in Him, but to be
fully convinced—and comfortable in this conviction—that God knows what He is
doing.
Think about that.
Do you really believe that God knows what
He is doing? It is a difficult place to reach, this apostolic level of belief;
it requires a deep reverential respect for God, and a profound spiritual
maturity. (Unbelievers refer to this as extreme naiveté, or blind faith.) To
believe that God knows what He is doing in a world filled with terror, where
mass shootings and infanticide have become daily occurrences, is not an easy
place to reach. And if we are completely honest with ourselves, we will confess
that, mostly, our words and our actions suggest we do not trust God with the
running of His world. Faith in God is more than simply believing in His
ultimate goodness. It is accepting that just because we do not understand, does not mean He doesn’t.
In order to reach this State of Faith, we
would have to accept one simple but profound biblical truth: God’s ways are not
our ways (Isaiah 55:8). He does not think as we think. God knows everything
concerning the past, present, and future, and so His understanding and actions
are not limited by ignorance, as ours are. These days we try to simplify God,
shape Him to fit into our narrow worldview. We want a God we can understand, a
genie-in-a-bottle God who showers us with riches; a boiled down God who
basically lets us run amuck; a simple God who is more akin to Dumbledore than
to divinity. But we must understand that God is not man. In fact, He is more
akin to an alien species than to the human race in His knowledge and
comprehension of reality.
‘For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your
thoughts,’ (Isaiah 55:9).
God does not think the way humans think.
For this I am grateful. I would not want to worship a God who is prone to
faulty human reasoning and beholden (there’s a fun word) to simplistic human
nature of greed and corruption. So while we do not understand why a good God
would permit these daily atrocities, these personal and public tragedies, God
does. If you can accept this difficult but profound truth, you are on your way
to learning how to have real faith in God. (Such uncomfortable teachings are
rarely taught these days, a failure on the part of our teachers that partially
explains our ignorance of God’s nature.)
The second act of faith is to obey. Trust
and obey (like the old hymn that we no longer sing, for no reason at all).
Obedience, or the drive to obey, comes from trusting that God knows what He is
doing amid the chaos and carnage of daily human existence. We obey because we
trust. Obedience to God’s word is then an outward act of faith and love,
evidence of our trust in Him. It is not easy. Christianity is not easy, no
matter what the name-it-and-claim-it life coaches would have you believe. The
Bible makes clear that the life of a Christian will not be all sunshine and
butterflies. It also makes clear that God has a reason for our trials, for our
suffering. We trust that He understands the tragedies that make no sense at all
to us.
I don’t know why my grandfather, the
humblest, most faithful servant of God I have ever known, was forced to endure
three years of Alzheimer’s and other terrible afflictions before passing on.
Why would God let His faithful servant suffer? I don’t know, but I trust
that God does. This helps me to accept the things that are beyond human
comprehension. I take comfort in knowing that my God is not limited as I am
limited.
When you come into this place of complete
trust in God, you find a peace there that cannot be explained, that passes
understanding (Philippians 4:7). It might not even seem logical to outsiders.
But it is a wonderful thing to understand that God is still on the throne, that
He knows what He is doing.
But don’t take me at my word. Turn to God’s
Word—everything else is just opinion.
