Every day, we invest our faith in things that we may not consciously realize. I am placing faith in this table to hold my laptop upright, I have faith that my brain will tell my fingers to type, I trust in my breath to keep circulating, even when I don’t purposely entertain thoughts and directives for it to do so.
If I were to place an over-emphasis on these otherwise natural things (as I did just now in order to consider examples for this post), things get a little unnatural and not as they intended, even for a fleeting moment. You start to behave in ways that are unnatural as you use your finite mental capacity to explain something that doesn’t need explanation. It’s kind of like repeating a word over and over. If you do so long enough, it starts not making sense, and you start to fixate on something that was perfectly fine and functionally healthy existing on its own.
Then you move from the physical world and into the spiritual. The Bible promises us vast and beautiful promises. Promises that God will never leave us nor forsake us. Promises for our good future, for our hope. Promises that He will make a way where there is yet no way for us to see. A lamp for our footsteps. Life eternal. But unlike our belief in the table, these promises are harder for us to weave into our being, though it is the very stuff that our souls are craving. Assuming that we believe in a good and loving and faithful Creator, why is it so hard for us to believe what He says?
1. Insecurities
We don’t believe that good things will come to us because we don’t believe we are worthy of receiving good things. We, by nature, are humans programmed to do more, strive harder, accumulate works we or society or culture deems as “good”. Well what happens when we fall short? What happens when countless people have told us or implied we weren’t good enough, when we’ve faced rejection more than acceptance, when we’ve been lied to and reinforce those lies for years as we choose to believe them? We build walls to protect ourselves. We fend off God’s laser-beams of love and truth without meaning to because we’ve encased ourself in walls of our own making. Do we dare believe we too can enter into times of fruitfulness? Experience real love? Be satisfied by the work that we do? All of that requires trust. To trust a promise we can’t hold and feel in the palms of our hands requires believing first, and then seeing what we believe is true.
2. Circumstances
As the title of this post reads, seeing alone is incomplete. Our vision is partial and limited in scope. We do not have the mind of our omniscient Creator. How unmiraculous He would truly be if we did. What we are left to gaze upon are the literal things we see around us. Our current life place, the things we dread, and the day-to-day details and grievances and tragedies we experience are shouting in our faces that there is no God. It is so important, then, that we strengthen our core relationship with Him and truly break down the fundamentals of Who God is as He is described in the Bible - our Redeemer, our Rock, our Deliver, our Provider, our Shepherd, our Father, and so on. In our flesh and in our sadness--even in our joy--we WILL become so wrapped up in what we are experiencing through our physical senses that we will lose sight of the truth of God’s promises. In our anxiety we can’t always fathom a peace that surpasses all understanding. In our exhilaration we don’t always realize our need for continual dependence on our Provider, the giver of blessings.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
We must separate our feelings from what is truth and pray that the truth presses deeper into us than our present circumstances ever will. It is then, in our release and submission in full trust to Jesus, that we will be able to find contentment in whatever we are facing. True contentment comes from knowing Who you belong to and knowing what He promises. Through this understanding, we develop a trust in what He will do with our lives as He shows us purpose in our lives and present circumstances. When you wrap your brain and spirit around these truths, your fear of the unknown loses its potency.
3. Illiteracy
To know God’s promises you have to read them, you have to be taught them, you have to ruminate on them, you have to pray and ask for them to be applied to your life. God is so kind in that He makes all of His promises accessible to us if we believe in Jesus, who came to initiate that beautiful relationship of communication in freedom with our Father, the giver of good gifts and every spiritual blessing. Jesus is our peace, and we see that more and more in Scripture as we read about Him. It seems basic to just be told to read the Bible, it may even seem like drudgery, but at some point, if you are serious about getting a grip on your emotional and spiritual life and relationship with God you must come to terms with the fact that the Bible is one of the most important ways to unlock the mysteries of His heart. And when you take that step of obedience, you will discover that Scripture will come alive to you, meeting you right where you are presently at. I cannot even begin to describe how many times I’ve been talking with a downtrodden friend or shooting off a text or was even just walking down the street when a verse popped into my head out of nowhere that I hardly knew I retained. The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance all of God’s truths to you to equip you for this life that can be so difficult to endure. Jesus is the provider of lasting joy, and to tap into that joy and every other fruit of the Spirit, we need to uncover through His word what that looks like to begin with. In time, we will see that what is written in Scripture is ours as well.
4. Sin
We cannot understand the promises of God when we are a divided house within ourselves. Jesus says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and well, Jesus is clearly right. When we willingly choose sin over and over again when we know that isn't God's heart or will for us, chances are we are not zeroed in on living our lives completely submitted to God. To follow Christ does not mean a sinless life, but it does mean a life of continual repentance and walking in step with the Holy Spirit, ever vigilant and discerning, so that we always try to do what God wants and what best serves Him and others in love. So, when we secretly love what we deem a "pet" sin in our lives that doesn’t seem to be wrecking us or others all that much, we are still a divided house. When we flirt with a big sin we are just being more obvious about it. Whether acting out pet sins or large sins, we have still decided in that moment that our lives are most important. We have made our desires our own god, and we serve that god often. All of us have done this. But it is no wonder then why we cannot hear, see, or feel the touch of God in our lives. God cannot enter in where sin is reigning. God, the examiner of our hearts, knows what we are capable of handling, and because His timing is perfect, He will bless us when we can handle that blessing in His perfect way. If we are willfully sinning without acknowledging our actions, He in His righteousness and goodness cannot condone that, and as such, we won’t necessarily be seeing the fruit of some of His promises in our lives.
Are there more than four reasons why we don’t believe in the promises of God? Oh yes, surely there are. But when considering the reasons why I personally struggle to grasp these promises in my own life, it always seems in one way or another to trickle back down to a falsehood I thought about my self, a difficult experience I am enduring or have endured, a lack of recall or familiarity with what Scripture says, or a sin I simply have not dealt with. To trust in a God we cannot literally see is not as simple as righting our worlds with four easy solutions, a quick prayer and a little trot to a therapist. What this post doesn’t mention but I would be remiss to exclude is how incredibly difficult this faith journey can be, and how gradual and intricate and sometimes slow the process of sanctification (becoming more like Christ) can be and often is. But what has always bothered me in the past when I’ve heard people talk about how difficult it is to have faith is that yes, it is a difficult thing to trust God, to be obedient when our bodies tell us we want to do things we know aren’t for our best good, etc. etc. But what is harder, I think, is to walk around not knowing why you’re doing a single thing you’re doing every day. To not believe your struggles have any purpose at all. To not have the hope that your Father in heaven cares for you and is working out the details of your life for your good. To not live with a blessed eternity in mind. It is harder to look on the face of a grieving friend and not know in your heart that there is a God who loves him or her, and Who sees and is at work in their lives. So comparatively? No, the Christian life isn’t hard. A life without faith is. And a life in suffocating darkness is something I run from.
We all want the promises of God, but we don’t want to take the step of belief. To try to see first to validate your belief won’t do what you’re hoping for and all that your intellect insists it will. Many saw the miracles of Jesus and still didn’t believe He was the son of God. If we are open to the Holy Spirit’s gentle and loving softening of our hearts, we will begin to see us as God truly sees us, and the world around us through a different lens. I don't know much, but I do know that there are many hurting souls out there who need to know they are loved and that these promises are theirs. Maybe you're one of them. I certainly am. But we must first believe and then see, for seeing alone is incomplete.
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RESOURCE:
Something I have found to be very helpful...
365 Promises Blog
- If you would like a daily devotional sent to your email that focuses and elaborates on one promise each day, visit (http://www.365promises.com/) and click on the right side of the screen where it says "Get promises by email".
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"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." (2 Peter 1:3-4, emphasis mine)
"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory." (2 Corinthians 1:20)
"We humans are a hungry lot. We are driven by a craving to know who we are. Yet who we are is embedded in the heart of a holy God. Unless we seek for ourselves in the epicenter of God's grace, we will be forever condemned to walk the arid edges of self-understanding." -Calvin Miller
