Battered Faith; Bettered Faith

You don't know how much faith you have in something until it disappoints you.

Take politics for example. A life long Republican finds out that the policies he has supported and the people he has supprted are not exactly all that great. He finds out their claims to faith are more a political posturing than a self-desciption. Disillusionment sets in and the extent to which faith in the party existed is now revealed by the depth of pain experienced in the disillusionment.

Politics is one thing, but religion is so much more. What if the people (public leaders - not my current preacher) with whom you religiously identify are unethical toward a "good end?" What if the Christian association to which you pay dues uses fear tactics to influence the behavior of its constituents? What if your denomination is not merely mistaken, but is causing spiritual harm to people? What if your elders (not my current elders) are power hungry scumbags just waiting for their chance to pounce on control of the church, but use book chapter and verse for every one of their power plays? What if many of the essentials of Biblical interpretation handed down to you are hack theology that presses an agenda derived from intense ecclesial division than the Spirit of Jesus? What if all the people you considered "rocks" of faith are either rocks of bad faith or have turned to mush? What if you read about the church in Acts selling possessions to give to the poor and you see your church accumulating possessions and throwing crumbs to the poor?

What if you look in the mirror and find a confused person making lots of mistakes? What if that person knows one thing and does another? What if you find that you're now the age that you should have been grown up by, but aren't even close?

When the props get kicked out from beneath your faith, what's left?

There is enough evidence in the world of church and in the mirror today to make just about anyone want to roll over and die. At the same time, there is something within that refuses. And undying something protests. There is a hope that goes beyond evidence. There is a dream that defies identifiable facts. When everything crumbles to the ground in broken pieces, something remains unshaken.

Live faith requires much death. There is no end to the parade of ideas, beliefs, organizations, structures, feelings, people, that want to merge with our faith and eventually hi-jack it. Attachment to these things must die. In a faithful person without the will to detach from these things on his own, God Himself is gracious enough to come and make the separation - ripping things out of hands if necessary.

Great faith does not take a pleasant float trip down a calm river. That's wussie faith. Great faith takes a perilous and dangerous trip into unknown waters.

"When everything that can be shaken has been shaken, all that remains is all you ever really had." - Rich Mullins