Keeping Faith

In a group I regularly attend, the question was raised, "How can we keep faith?" When pressed, the person raising the question admitted that his faith in God had been undermined by the depression he was currently suffering from.

I approach the question of keeping faith by looking at a prior issue: How do you lose faith? Since faith is an act of trust, faith can be "lost" when trust is betrayed or broken. When it comes to our relationship with God, we need to be aware of our expectations of this relationship.

When God doesn't act in the way(s) we expect, we might feel deserted or abandoned by God-- especially when we're in a time of distress. When we cry out to God for help, and don't receive what we're asking for, we tend to blame God for being nonresponsive.

We need to examine our expectations of God and how God acts in our lives and world. When our expectations aren't met, perhaps it's a sign that we need to revise our expectations rather than blaming God for not responding as we asked.

When trust is lost in a relationship, it can be rebuilt. This process of rebuilding takes time and patience. If faith can be lost, it can also be found again. What is needed is a commitment to stay in the relationship and work through its challenges. This is true of our relationship with each other and our relationship with God.

Believing Thomas

I think that "Doubting" Thomas has gotten a bad rap. The negative moniker "doubting" was attached to him on the basis of the story in John 20:19-31. In this Easter day story, Thomas isn't present when the Risen Christ appears to the other disciples. When they tell Thomas what happened he says, in effect, "I don't believe you. I need to see the Risen Christ for myself."

There are several different types of doubt that Thomas doesn't exhibit. He doesn't doubt the existence of God. He doesn't doubt that Jesus existed. He doesn't express "existential" doubt, which is deep and powerful uncertainty. The nature of his doubt is, "I need to experience this for myself."

Thomas's spiritual journey to faith in the Risen Christ is a common one. Rather than taking someone else's word, he needs to have first-hand experience in order to believe. What's so wrong with this?

In fact, Thomas makes the ultimate confession of faith when the Risen Christ appears to him a week after Easter. He says, "My Lord and my God!" This is the confession that the author of John's gospel wants us, the readers, to make. This author says that he wrote the gospel so that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ and, in believing, have new life.

So my nickname for Thomas is Believing Thomas. His doubt of his fellow disciples leads him to a powerful encounter with the Risen Christ that results in faith. So may our "doubts" lead us to faith.

Faith As Trust

When we hear or read the word “faith," we are most likely to understand it as a synonym for “belief.” In this understanding, faith is intellectual assent, the act of believing certain truths about God, Jesus, the Bible, and so on. Reciting the Apostles’ Creed is an example of this definition of faith.

For Paul, however, faith is active and radical trust in God. Faith is an active verb rather than a passive noun. Faith is a relational word; it describes our active reception of God’s grace. Abraham is the great example of faith-as-trust because he responds to God’s call by risking everything. He trusts God’s covenant and acts upon that trust by leaving his home and parents to travel to a distant and unknown land.

Faith isn’t simply assent to a set of beliefs, but an active, dynamic relationship of trusting God. God’s stance in this relationship is captured by the word “grace.” There are many definitions of grace, but the one I find most powerful is: God’s unconditional love. God loves us without condition. There is nothing we can do to earn or deserve God’s love. It comes as pure gift. All we can do is receive it. And the word that describes our reception of God’s grace is “faith”.

When you think about it, trust is critical in any relationship. I would go so far as to say that where there is no trust, there is no relationship. Think about the persons in your life that you trust. Your list will likely include family members, friends, co-workers and church members. The more we trust someone, the closer is our relationship with them.

When we trust someone, we feel free to be ourselves around them. We are also able to risk telling that person our deepest feelings, even those things we might be ashamed of and would like to keep hidden. Love and trust go hand in hand. Love grows as trust deepens. This is not only true of our relationship with each other, it is the truth about our relationship with God.