The hardship of faith

Part of the difficulty, it seems to me, in experiencing the despondency of faith is that the circumstances of trial are never quite what I expect. They always put me in a place that I had not already explored with my imagination and populated with my fantasies of 'standing strong'. They put me, in other words, in a place uttery foriegn, utterly different to the one I had steeled myself to face.

Indeed, it seems to me that it is precisely when we steel ourselves for a fight, and find it where we expect, that we are at our worst. So, for instance, it is part of Reformed lore to stand when all others abandon the truth in various degrees of apostacy. It is lore that has become romance to us; the romance that causes a perverse delight to be taken in being the one who stands to fight. And fight we do.

But you see, it is not in the places prepared afore, by our romantic imaginations, that we find reliance on God. In such places we more often find our own strategies, our own strengths, our own tactics and responses. And thus we find the very opposite of humility, but a kind of steely determination that, after all, I will hold.

So I suspect that God rarely puts us in situations demanding a choreographed response. At least, not when He means us to grow. The situations that match our romantic fantasies are probably those where God is tempting us to show our true colours; they are those of judgment.

This, I think, is the hurt and pain of faith. God casts us for a time in a place unknown, in an alien landscape, unprepared and not in the least bit romantic. And there, ironically, we are tempted to say God has abandoned me, because we cannot find any of our usual strengths or markers. And yet it seems to me that such a place is exactly where we must call out to God, to find Him again, to seek Him in humilty, fear, and dependence. It is here in which all of us is stripped away.

And yet what a hideous and horrible place it is. Exposed and alone, it feels achingly close to that place where it becomes obvious that we should abandon God, and do what seems right to us. For of what benefit has God been, after all? Where has my faith got me? Here? Then what is it worth?

Yet here in the wilderness, in the place I cannot navigate and do not recognise, is - if it may be found - the gentle, refinining, stunningly compassionate grace of God.

O God, make Thyself known.