Ear-Splitting Offspring: When Faith Fails

Last week in Bible study, we talked about the 400 year period of time in which God was silent with his people.

Silent.

Have you ever gone through a period of your life in which you felt the absence of God's voice?

Do you feel as though maybe you've never heard his voice at all?

Then you know the confusion/doubt/anxiety/stress/hurt that comes along with hearing nothing.

Looking back through the histories, we see the way in which God worked it all out for his glory, his good (Oh Jeremiah 29:11, how you plague me), but that is a very long time.

My question back to my bible study leader was this: "How did Christianity survive?"

His answer made sense to me, but I am still pretty cynical about the whole thing.

Christianity survived because there were those who kept up, with obedience and faith, the practices of the church.

But for 400 years?

Of COURSE there were Pharisees by the time Jesus came around, and how could we blame them? They had centuries of works with no relationship to spur them on. Eventually, yah, wouldn't that lead you to legalism?

They explained this as well by telling me that there were both Pharisees as well as those still truly filled with hope, holding fast to the assurances of the scriptures.

They kept up their faith on a promise, though they didn't have firsthand knowledge of the content of that promise.

Once, when I was in Belfast, I met an ex-Christian. It was a rough day, and I was in no mood for a fight, but maybe I needed to have that semi-fight.

In the midst of him telling me how silly I was to believe in a God and questioning why I would, I told him that sometimes, you just need to. Not out of compulsion but because, sometimes, you need the lifeline possibility that there is a reason for:pain/suffering/death/divorce.

That “sometimes” introduction can be the beginning of a really beautiful thing. Not every relationship has a book-worthy beginning. Jesus doesn’t really care how we come to him, though. He cares that we come at all.

What happens when faith fails, though?

What should our response be in the times that suddenly everything feels false, where prayer feels one-sided, when we ask for a sign/answer/direction and receive nothing?

I don’t know.

In times I have felt that way, I have continued to pursue all options on the hope and determination that God will start shutting doors if I just start moving forward. 
But what if all the doors open.
Or all the doors close.
What then?

Should I assume that the answers are all around me already if only I would sift through my own perceptions and bias to see them?
Should I assume God will bless wherever I choose?
Should I assume that the correct doorway has yet to appear?

When faith fails...it's time to redefine faith. Or, rather, to give thought to the definition of faith.

Faith: noun: complete trust or confidence in someone or something. 

Complete trust or confidence. 
Man, I think the last time I had complete trust or confidence in someone was before I was aware enough to realize what I was doing. 

As a baby, you may not consciously decide to put all your cards of faith in with your parents but, given your behavioral responses to them, it is evident that you do. 

As babies, when we get hungry or are afraid, we cry. 
If we did not anticipate a response of food or comfort, we would not cry. 
Because we trust in the goodness and consistency of our parents, though, we know intrinsically that our tears will bring them immediately to our side. And, if not immediately, we know they will be there as soon as humanly possible, if only we will hold out for them. 
The times our parents don't come are when they understand their children's tears enough to know when a response is not required, when it would ultimately serve their child best to self-sooth, even if it kills mom and dad to hear them wailing. 

Maybe that's how it is with God. 
Maybe he hears us cry and knows its time for self-soothing, to be empowered with the training he has already given us to reach our own conclusions. 

For now, then, that's how I'll answer. When God seems silent, my spirit should reflect and turn quiet as well, looking, watching, and waiting for something I may not otherwise be able to perceive in my hysteria. 

The Israelites cultured a spirit of faith, fed with promises, to sustain them. 
Then, as he said that he would, their father, Jesus, came to soothe, save, and sanctify. 

Blank Space

That new T-Swift song is great, but I've got a completely unrelated story.

I'm a writer, right? I'm designed to be a bit broody and ruminate and turn that into words.

So maybe it's my disposition toward slow processing that's made my experiences of last fall so difficult for me to...get out of my system.

There's a lot I don't remember. There's a lot I do remember.

Last year: three weeks of silence and one week of fighting to complete November, the waiting month. Sometimes, good things don't happen to those who wait.

A whole host of awful happened after. Awful that I only found out in segments. Awful that I still don't understand. And I don't need to. And I probably won't ever.

I came out of chapel today to see the retreating figure of a girl I have spent nearly a year's worth of energy and thoughts and behaviors in practical hatred.

And, though I had contemplated it before and decided against more than once, it was finally the right moment.

It does not matter what happened last year.
Or how it happened.

My response to it has been entirely my own to own.
And I have allowed myself to hate and behave in every manner contrary to the grace that I have been shown in my own life.

That ends today.

Today I apologized for my sin.
Didn't wake up thinking I would.
Still kind of shocked that I did.
And I've got that just-graduated feeling where you're having to readjust to not having homework hanging over your head or dreading the homework that will be hanging over your head.
All this space.
All this opportunity.

I don't know if I did it right or if I would go back and revise to make it perfect, but it was sincere and hard and time.

God is good.
God redeems.

Without that one catalyst (and all the ones that followed), literally everything in my life would be different. I would not be in Arkansas, I would not be with Julius, and I may not be who I want to be, but thanks be to God I'm not who I was.

The journey continues.
And it's slow and annoying and endless feeling, but I'm really thankful for these kinds of moments, when I see how God is making good on pain and moving me forward.

5/16/12-Irish Adventures: Lessons in Silence

We went into the city in silence yesterday. silence as in we weren’t allowed to talk. at all. for four hours. I’m an introvert, so this wasn’t that hard for me at all. I really enjoyed the time that I got to spend just thinking and reading and journaling and watching the people here.

and there’s something that I noticed.

It wasn’t weird. The culture actually encourages this lifestyle. The Irish weren’t at all what I expected: loud. They are passionate people, but speak when they need to. They don’t just run their mouths like we Americans do. They think with depth and clarity and come out on the other side with something intelligent to say. And with what lovely accents do they say it. 

I don’t really want to leave at all. Not because I’m one of those people that freaks out in love with what is different. I actually am usually strongly opposed to what is different. I don’t want to leave because I make sense here. My personality type is actually normal and understandable. There are other people who think like me. And it is not hard for me to understand now why so many writers escape to here. They can hear themselves and they can hear the silence. You can’t hear silence where I’m from. It’s a lovely place, but it never stops. I think it may be because we’re all afraid of what we’ll hear when we do.