Thoughts on Faith, Fear, and Judging Others
Faith has to be connected to something - an object. Every human being operates by faith everyday; I may believe intellectually that a chair will hold me, but I faithe in the chair when I sit.
Faith is based on the nearest thing to a certainty. Then we leap. “Most chairs have held me. Therefore this one will.” We don’t yet know this one will hold us, not until we sit on it. But we leap. Such faith we don’t even have to think about, because it becomes a spontaneous, subconscious assumption. We learn this faith in many areas as children if we grow up in a safe and loving environment. If not, we end up assailed by many fears, insecurities, a sense of inadequacy.
God in Christ gives us an anchor for faith, a chair that will never break, a foundation that will never crumble. That is why “The people of God shall be strong and do exploits.” That gives us the ability to step out in faith in everyday situations and do the impossible and unexpected.
Unfortunately most of us don’t live in that kind of Christ-reliance in all areas of our lives, myself included. But that’s really what the life of being progressively conformed to Christ’s image is all about. Faith is a growing thing. We get good at it by doing it.
This is one reason we can’t judge by a person’s behavior. We have no idea how they grew up. We have no concept of their fears, the terror, the lies that have penetrated their soul. We cannot know what strong faith they may already possess because we are likely unaware of what they’ve already overcome.
When renovating a house, furniture is taken out, carpeting is torn up, walls are broken down, entire rooms demolished. We look at one of God’s human houses and say, “What a mess this guy is. He needs to read more, pray more, give more. He needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If he was, he wouldn’t look like such a mess.” In other words, “He needs to have it all together, like me.” By judging we prescribe our own medicine - Law, self-effort, and works - rather than trusting in God’s working in and on the man, and speaking encouraging truth in love. We miss the fact that God is doing major surgery through the man’s troubles, struggles, and even his sins (this is not to blame God for sin, but that He uses everything in a believer’s life for His own love-purposes).
But God works on a man how He chooses, and doesn’t really give a rip what people think about it.
What he is looking for is for us step out in faith in what He says in the Word.
Here’s what he says about the Christ-indwelt person:
“You are holy.” What does it look like to put our full weight in that chair?
“You are loved.” How does that show in our attitude when we stand on that Rock?
“If any man is in Christ, he is (not ‘will be’) a new creation.” What does it look like to be a totally new person, I mean, if we really believed it? Would it show, like our faith in a chair results in the chair holding us?
We can’t flip-flop this and “try to behave” without first replacing our unbelief. I can beat on my vacuum cleaner all day to get it to behave according to the manufacturer’s specs, but it’s not going to happen until I plug it in and turn it on.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Reminds me an unattributed quote our pastor mentioned during staff meeting yesterday: ‘The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is fear.’
These sentiments are exactly what we are trying to emulate in our lives as well as instructing our four blessings. Application…why is it so hard? Lord give us all the desire to use the wisdom provided, given in your word!
Thanks Ron!
“We cannot know what strong faith they may already possess because we are likely unaware of what they’ve already overcome.”
Lewis talks about this in Mere Christianity (I think). What a wonderful perspective shift from normal self righteous attitudes. It was a kick in the pants for me.
Thanks for the reminder Ron.
Ron,
Very insightful. I am reminded of what Paul reminds us through the Holy Spirit:
“What God has begun in us He will complete.” God does nothing in half-measures.Cultivating a close relationship with the “most winsome Being in the universe” will indeed cause us to walk in a strong and confident faith.
Phil 1:6 for the quoted reference above.
“When renovating a house, furniture is taken out, carpeting is torn up, walls are broken down, entire rooms demolished.”
It reminds me of a sermon I heard by Tony Evans of how painful that remodeling process can be on personal level: “God can’t remodel the house until he tears down the walls.”
Aaron,
C.S. Lewis compares it to the kind of car we’re driving through life. Some have a beauty, and some are bombing around in an old junk. Only the Great One knows the condition of our earthly rides. He alone is equipped to judge the process. And He says “I didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it”. Wow!
Enjoyed this post, Ron.
Your friend on the pilgrim road,
Loriann
Ron
Romans 8:28 “For God does work all things to the good of those who love Him” Life’s “broken chairs” do hurt and they can create fear of the unknown. Such as when a person’s son dies. The unthinkable has happened and one must realize that Satan also lives in this world. The only difference between keeping the faith in God’s promises and caving into bitterness. You see the goodness in the tragedy and you want to make sure that God is glorified in repairing the broken chair rather than allowing the chair to stay broken.
Blessings
Leesa
Leesa,
Life has broken chairs - yes. We go to sit in something and it falls apart.
We have to realize that in reality - actual Reality - there are no broken chairs. God always keeps His Word, even if we don’t see it, even if we are torn apart by life - He desires to teach us that all things do work together for good to those who love Him, the called according to His purpose. No broken chairs. No wasted time. We are schooled by everything that happens to us.
The broken chairs that happen in this temporary framework of the Seen are designed to give us a choice. In a sense we are entrusted by the Creator of the universe with some chairs that break; we are entrusted with Choice. What will I do with this apparently broken chair, and the hurt done to me in the breaking of it? Will I trust God and walk in faith again, or will I put up, shut up, hide, and shrink back in a desire to never be hurt in this way again?
People in this seen realm who have unreasonable fears about ordinary things - going outside, spiders, enclosed spaces, crowds - are considered as having a mental aberration, a little bit of mental ill-health.
What, then, of not trusting God? It is the ultimate in ill-health - spiritually, mentally, and eventually, if persisted in, even physically.
Broken chairs along the way give us the exercise in faith-ing, to build the reliance on Christ that we will need for future endeavors.
We must choose to either stay frozen with fear or move forward in faith. Joshua 1:7-9 became the verse that helped me to move forward rather than frozen.
Thanks for all that you do
Leesa