I would be lying if I said my faith hasn't been tested from time to time to the point of almost shattering. Curiously though, when I was sick I had no faith issues. I remember being in the hallway waiting to see the doctor with my carcinoma positive test on my hand about to hear what my fate was going to be. I got a call from my sister who was in great distress over my positive result. "I'm going to be OK. This has not escaped My Father's control. Be confident and do not be afraid." A lady was listening to my conversation because even though my words were calm, sweet, and encouraging to my sister miles away fearing for her sister's life, streams of tears were flowing down my cheeks. She came over and said how stunned she was by my words even though she could see that I was in pain. This continued pretty much during my whole time in chemo and surgeries. I was the one comforting family and friends at the hospital on every surgery and at the doctor's appointments.
It was easy to have faith. It was the only choice I had. My mortality was so real that my faith in an immortal God was my only hope. I turned to Him in great hope because it was the only hope I had. If I was to die at the age of 30, at least there was something more waiting for me.
After a year of treatment when all the dust settled, doubt and anxiety took over. Why? C.S. Lewis explains it best in his book "The Problem of Pain"
“At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over--I shake myself dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed."This quote especifically "I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days" hits hard. I spent so much time in prayer asking for Kinsley to be spared from her cancer while my chances were looking better and hers were looking grimmer that afterward prayer triggered my PTSD hard.
I expressed my unbelief to my Bible study group in tears last Sunday. I told them how a brother from my church in Honduras was in the hospital for Covid and how the church asked us to join them in prayer. I had seen so many people in his situation die of Covid in spite of thousand prayers that I did not pray. I didn't want to. He died anyways. My faith had been shattered. I told them how I knew that the power of my prayers was not in me saying the prayer but on the One I pray to. Yet my heart was struggling. It had been struggling since I saw many friends lose a mom or dad, or when I lost a friend in his early 30s about to get married. A brother in my Bible study group recently lost his wife to cancer. He wrote the pastor concerning my comments and struggles. "What would happen if God answered all our prayers for healing? We would have thousands of new believers. We would have thousands of prayer requests." Faith would be dependent on what God can do for us, not on Who God is. Pastor Bob followed this with "Faith has to have an object of our belief. Our faith is not on what He can do for us. It is faith in what He already did for us. Faith is in Who He is and what He has planned for us, which is our hope."
Pastor Bob said that someone once suggested that if you were struggling to know Who God is you should read the book of Colossians. (That is definitely on my TO DO list next. I've read it plenty of times before, but I want to read it again to see what Pastor Bob meant.) Focusing on the person instead of the actions is what keeps marriages and relationships alive and well. If you focus on what they do instead of who they are, it is easy to stop loving them, especially when you feel they have failed you. Today, in our very first church meeting since Covid hit 59 weeks ago, we were singing a song that said "He is my confidence for great is His faithfulness, and He has never failed me yet." A thought pops into my hand: "He didn't fail you. You were spared and you survived." But I would lie if I didn't say the thought that He did fail the others I prayed for that weren't spared.
My favorite songwritter in the world, Jon Foreman, recently wrote a song called "Jesus, I have my doubts." Everyone in our fan Facebook group was posting that it meant he had abandoned his faith. Expressing your unbelief is a bit of taboo on our Christian circles. I wish it wasn't because how are you going to get support with your struggles and the lies Satan is feeding you if you don't open up about them? Opening up my bottled up struggles with faith have done so much in helping me get out of the valley of unbelief and take me closer to the mountain of confidence.
After voicing these thoughts to my Bible study group, we read these verses together:
Hebrew 4
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. 37 For,
“In just a little while,
He Who is coming will come
and will not delay.”
38 And,
“But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
