The older I get, the more I realize just how remarkably unprepared I am for the complexities of life.
Nothing has prepared me to comfort someone facing the adultery of a spouse or the reality that the life they’ve dreamed of will never come to pass. I’ve been trained to fix things, but little in this world is truly fixable. And this isn’t just a phenomenon I experience with friends and loved ones. I must also sit with myself. I’ve experienced pain that seems deeper than words and those griefs and fears have a way of bubbling themselves to the surface when the world is quiet.
It’s not all negative, to be clear. I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of holding my newborn children or soaking in the sights and smells of a lush green forest after a spring rain. And I’m glad I wasn’t, for the surprise of beauty is an inseparable part of the joy.
But perhaps more than anything, I’ve never been prepared for the mysteries of following Jesus. In a time that is post-systematic theology, I was given the impression that all things about our Christian faith could be carefully cataloged and understood. Surely no one actually says this, but it was an unconscious impression I picked up along the way. Decades later, I’m finding that there is more about my faith that escapes clean definition than can be clearly defined.
What is “faith”, really?
Well, on one level, the author of Hebrews gives us a clear definition: “Faith is the certainty of things hoped for, the proof of things not yet seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NASB).
I’ve read this verse dozens of times at least, and yet I’m currently at a point in my life in which I need to rely on faith more than ever before: faith that the works of Jesus are true, that his promises are true, that His teachings will stand up against the seemingly overwhelming powers of the world.
I should be certain of what I am hoping for, having proof of what is not yet seen. But the author of Hebrews doesn’t stop here, nor did they even begin here (this verse is eleven chapters into the letter, after all).
In order to truly define faith, if such a thing is truly possible, the author of Hebrews does what nearly every other Jewish writer and thinker has done before them: retell the narratives of Scripture. Jesus, Paul, the prophets, they constantly pull on the stories of Scripture from before them to flush out the depths of truth they are working to convey.
So, the author of Hebrews moves from this “definition” of faith to key narratives about the “people of old” (v2) and how faith manifested in their lives. And this author isn’t being exhaustive, they expect the reader to know (or perhaps go reread) these stories in light of the larger context of this letter. They are giving us what Tim Mackie might call “hyperlinks” that we can use to go back and reread the larger Scriptural narratives.
Even something as central to our faith as the idea of “faith” needs more than a simple definition: it needs all the language and narrative of the Bible to paint a picture clearly enough for someone like me to even begin to understand.
More and more, as I’m working through the complexities of my own life and faith journey, I’m finding myself unintentionally doing what the authors of Hebrews does so well: explaining my experiences through Scripture narratives.
Narratives. Not just isolated verses, as I have been prone to earlier in my faith, but using the stories and themes from large swaths of Scripture to give my experiences language.
For example, my wife and I have been called by the Lord to embark on a full-time ministry initiative in which financial provision seems impossible without divine intervention. The calling has been affirmed by our friends and mentors in the Church, and now we must wait as our current season ends and this next season begins.
My struggles during this time can’t be summed up by saying, “I’m struggling to have faith in God.” That’s true… sort of. My feelings and emotions are incredibly nuanced as I navigate believing that God will not only provide for me, but for my family as well. In fact, while processing with a friend about my current thoughts/feelings about what the Lord has called us to do, I found myself pulling from all throughout Scripture.
I considered Abraham and his moving to a country in famine. I didn’t want to be like him, when he retreated to Egypt instead of waiting for God to feed him in the wilderness.
And speaking of provision in the wilderness, didn’t God provide for the Israelites in the wilderness? I’m a father of four boys and the sole income provider for our home, and thinking anew about the Exodus narrative has me considering what it would have been like to be a Jewish father having to trust that the Lord would send manna down so that my children could eat. Trusting God with myself is difficult at times, but trusting the Lord with my children is harder. And yet, God fed the children too.
And didn’t Jesus teach that if God provides for birds, then my Father in Heaven will provide for me too? But I don’t feel as confident as a bird today, but more like that father who came to Jesus because the disciples could not heal his son. I believe, Lord, but help me with my unbelief.
And on and on.
In fact, the only way I could navigate the complexities of my thoughts was to constantly pull from Scripture. The story of the Bible became my language, giving me thoughts and insights that I just didn’t have before. And as I was able to make these connections, it became easier to understand my own story as one, small, extension of the larger Biblical narrative.
And my faith grew, almost without my noticing.
As I meditated on all those stories of faith and failure, it became obvious all over again that trusting the Lord (even when it appears as foolishness by the world’s standards) is simply the safest and most obvious thing in all the world.
Outwardly, nothing changed. Inwardly, everything changed.
God will provide for my family, though I doubt it will happen exactly as I think it will. He does not fail in his promises. This doesn’t mean it will be easy; it may prove incredibly painful, but that in no way means I should not fully trust Him.
Even if, like Abraham, my very son is on the altar, I should trust Him.
I suppose this is one manifestation of that first Psalm, in which the psalmist says the “blessed” person is one meditates day and night on the Law (or Teaching) of the Lord (Psalm 1:2).
Which brings us back to sitting in the brokenness of others and myself.
I can fix very little in this world, but I’m slowly beginning to help myself and others put words to those pains. Not new words conjured from my own mind, but words that come from the narratives of Scripture. After a lot of time listening, with much silence on my part, I’m learning the careful art of bringing to mind (for both myself and others) the stories of Scripture that can help us say, “yeah, that’s how I feel!”
Nothing is almost ever “fixed” by seeing our struggles and trials revealed like a mirror in the Bible. Yet very often a great many things are healed.
Sitting beside a couple struggling with infertility, there is nothing I could ever do to “help”. But I can weep with them like Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus (John 11), and I can pray for them with the passion of Hannah praying for a son (1 Samuel 1). And perhaps, if the Lord leads me with the utmost care, I may recall a story from Scripture of someone struggling to stay faithful in the now, when the good thing they long for seems out of reach.
But even if I say nothing, focused only on the ever important ministry of silence, my mind will wander through the narrative of Scripture, connecting the story God wove then, to the one He’s weaving now.