A Crisis of Faith

Question:
With all the tragedy and suffering in the world, how am I supposed to have faith?  Look what is happening around us.  I would like to feel faith, but it doesn’t come.  It seems irrational. 

Response: 
Faith……. what a laden word!  I am envious when I encounter someone with faith so strong and simple that nothing can shake it.  For some of us, however, faith is a decision, not just a feeling.    And sometimes that decision is just way too difficult to make at an any given moment.  But if we abandon our faith……. even that feeling……what reason would be left in life?  There would be no meaning if there were nothing in which to believe. 

When we act on that small seed of whatever faith we now have, that faith seems to grow within us.  We may encounter small sometimes meaningless happenings, and we find that little spark of faith sets in motion something deep within us. 

I am blessed with children, and when each one was born, I was overwhelmed with love for that child.   I have a file of articles that I clipped from papers and magazines about children, pets or just humorous.   Ann Landers was one of my favorites.  One article was an interview with a woman who had many children.  The writer asked her if she had a favorite one.  She said, “Of course I do.  “It’s the one who is sick until he or she gets well, and the one who is gone, until they get home.”

That might describe our faith. The mother’s response concerns the faith that we don’t have at the moment we want it.  However, faith isn’t something that we can just conjure up ourselves. We always want more. We want to find meaning in whatever is happening to us and in the world. 

The Lord spoke of having only a mustard seed of faith.  Even that isn’t easy at times, and yet as I write, I realize that even though I feel I may be lacking in faith….. it is there all along.  My heart may be hurting but my brain reminds me faith is real and there is a God and He is good.   When I’m in pain, that faith may be cloudy, but I know it’s there.

                      God is good, He is faithful…….That’s all we need!