The Courage of Faith
In Craig’s message this week about marriage, He talked about making decisions as a married couple and how it can be hard to make those decisions in faith. It’s so easy for fear to creep in and for our thoughts to down-spiral into questioning God and His heart towards us.
A decision based on fear is often our reality. Because, after all, we certainly want to be reasonable and mature and use our brain to think it through. But is faith always the “reasonable” decision? I’m not so sure.
The hardest thing about faith, for me, is that there really are no guarantees that our decision will play out as we hope. The reality of faith is that there is in fact risk involved. That is by definition the very meaning of faith. Believing before knowing the outcome or believing in what we cannot see. We can believe in our heart of hearts that we are hearing from God and step out in faith, but oh man, what if we’re wrong? We don’t want to be wrong. We don’t want to look foolish.
Tony and I have made a decision before, in faith, and things got really difficult. After a couple years of waiting and believing and fighting against doubts, the worst happened. Jobs disappeared, financial funds dried up, promises made my people didn’t pan out, doors closed, dead-ends materialized out of nowhere.
But you know what? Looking back at it, it was still the right decision, even though it looked wrong and foolish and even though some would say “I told you so.” It was right because I saw God show up in chaos. It was right because of who Tony and I became in the face of hardship. It was right because God knew we had risked something big because we were chasing after Him. I believe the very “chasing” makes Him happy. His love for us does not hinge on whether we succeed or fail. And I can tell you, nothing is quite as exhilarating as knowing you went for something big for God.
Faith is not about obeying the rules of Christianity. Anyone can obey the rules. Listen to what Paul says about this in Galatians 6:12
“These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you” [forcing you to obey the rules] “have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death.”
Then in Galatians 3:11 Paul says,
“Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping.”
Faith takes great courage because it is not about what you can do for God, but trusting enough to enter in to what God is doing for you. Faith takes great courage because you can’t just go to church, read your Bible and stop cussing. That sort of rule-keeping life never leads to faith. Faith requires you to trust God’s heart, and if you don’t really have a relationship with someone you can’t trust their heart. Faith reveals our true motives, our true weaknesses, our true desires. Faith calls us into something richer, but it’s richer because it’s harder, more challenging, more risky.
When we truly believe we are hearing from God and taking a step of faith, He will meet us there. We will come to know Him more. Our faith will not be in vain, no matter how much it appears we succeeded or failed. Faith believes it is still worth it even when everything around us contradicts that fact. That kind of faith can’t be “felt.” It has to be determined with the will. It has to be a courageous choice.
Craig pointed out that we must make a “conscience decision” to choose faith. We choose despite doubts, despite fears, despite Satan’s lies, despite the risk of failure, despite others thinking we are crazy. We choose faith because at the very root of our belief system is this radical idea that God loves us and wants the best for us and this love enables and woos us into doing exciting things that make us a part of a story bigger than ourselves.
[...] guest blogging at Church Online about the courage it takes to live a life with faith. Feel free to jump in with your thoughts in [...]
Faith has always been a little weak for my case – I could not go to church for some reasons, and I only did bible reading by myself, understanding it mostly through online materials, and did some sharing with only a couple of Christian friends.
But whenever I start to go off-track and started to think that I could go through this by myself, I could hear God calling back to me. As you say, we need a relationship with God in order to trust him completely, and it does take a lot of courage to believe in something we couldn’t see and couldn’t predict, but I could always see sparks of hope within those hardships. This is a really encouraging article to me, and I should remind myself to be more courageous.
I read this blog entry and I wondered if I’m really jumping in the deep end for the Lord. Then I was reminded that I’m showing up for work every day, changing diapers, showing up in my wife and daughter’s life. That’s a leap of faith, in just doing the mundane, that I didn’t get as a kid. I’m comforted that whatever we do in faith, God will meet us there.
[...] questioning why? Why again are be being pushed to this new level of faith? My sister in law sent me this article and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Also on the radio I heard this song, [...]
Lililim – Sounds like you have had a very strong faith, as you have had to do a lot of traveling and growing and learning alone. I’m glad those sparks of hope have always continued for you and pray they always will. I’m glad you were encouraged by reading this.
Faith can be just as courageous in the small mundane things. Sometimes, it can be even more challenging because we don’t get the adrenaline rush or the “pats on the back” that may come with amping up for something “big.” Thank you Joshua for the reminder that courageous faith comes in all seasons of life, no matter how “big” or “small” our steps of faith may seem.