How Can I Have Faith?

How can you have faith?

 
Somebody asked me that in my notes and it’s a good question that I will enjoy answering (as much as I will enjoy anything this evening as I am feeling sort of down and depressed – tired, etc. – another 12 hour day today and I’m just, generally in a down mood).

 
The note went on to say, “I want so badly to have actual faith. It’s like I can BELIEVE that God only wants good for me, but I don’t have FAITH.  Just thought that you might know, since in a prayer group and so must obviously have faith that your prayers will be answered.”

I guess I have faith that my prayers will be answered, but I sure don’t have faith they’ll be answered with a, “Yes,” necessarily.  I’ve had plenty of, “No,” answers.  Even Jesus had a, “No,” answer when He prayed to God to, “take this cup away from me,” in the Garden of Gethesemene before He was crucified but, “not my will but Thine be done.”  So I have plenty of faith God will answer, I just don’t have a lot of faith He’ll answer the way I’d like Him too.  Still, I have complete faith that He’ll answer in accordance to His will which will ultimately be for the best.

 For MY own personal life, I believe that what God decides is for HIS best is ultimately also going to be for MY best no matter how much it doesn’t seem like it at that moment. Shallow as it may seem, there was one final experience that put me over the edge on faith and that I cling to when things don’t seem so easy to understand.  Some years ago we were having some financial problems.  We always have financial problems.  We’re not very good with money and we’ve often just not made enough to make ends meet.  That combination is pretty disastrous.  At that particular time, we were just a shred away from make enough.  My husband had a mediocre job that he didn’t like very much but he did what he could. 

My husband hosts two annual barbeques every year, one right near Memorial Day, the other near Labor Day.  He always gets permits for a certain spot in the forest preserves and invites scads of people, basically everyone he has ever known.  He grew up in this area and stays in touch with folks he knew from his Boy Scout Troop and elementary school, etc. etc.  He’s very outgoing so, with each new job, he meets new people and makes new friends.  He always invites all the new folks he meets to these barbeques as well.  He sent out email invites to the folks in the department of this new job he had and the following Monday he was called into the Human Resources Dept. and fired… not for using the email but because somebody, we don’t know who, complained that the invite was sexual harassment. 

I work for a lawyer and took the issue to him.  He referred me to another lawyer who really botched the whole case (but that’s beside the point).  Anyway, here we were, with the major bread-winner out of work… fired in this humiliating (especially for a Christian) way!  I was devastated and horrified. This came on top of our other financial problems that had just erupted.  I looked to God with bitterness and disillusionment.  Hurt and more than perplexed at how God could harm us this way, I shook my head and said, “Okay, I see how it is… whatever I get in this world I have to scrape and crawl for.  I get the drift, God! It’s fend for yourself on this earth and don’t count on Heaven for anything!”  I felt hard and calloused and I got sick.  I was ill with disappointment in what God had allowed to happen to us.

This went on for several weeks until suddenly we got a call and a job was extended to my husband that allowed him to work in the city (which he loves), with a really good friend of his, and gave him a 14K / year raise! That was fourteen thousand dollars per year!!! As far as I was concerned that was like a whole ‘nother salary coming in!!! I mean 14K was more than I was making per year in my part time job!!!! I couldn’t believe it.  And had my husband been working that other stupid job he might never have been considered or extended the opportunity for this new job.  I vowed then and there NEVER to doubt God’s goodness again.  I vowed to just hang on and wait, no matter what.

Now, I know that sounds so superficial… like everything revolves around $$, etc. etc. but I’ve had a few tests since then where things didn’t turn out so beautifully.  And, even more, after four years at that wonderful job they cut back the staff there and my husband ended up laid off and in a lesser paying job ultimately.  Nevertheless, that experience allowed Jesus to endow me with some sort small but solid nugget of faith that seems to hold firm.  This faith is not a faith that says, “Oh, God will grant your request if you just wait…”<span style=

“”>  Instead it is a faith that says, “Whatever happens, if you are walking in God’s will, then God will have you covered even if it doesn’t feel like it.”  I mean, if I screw up and do stuff that clearly is inadvisable in the Bible, I can expect to suffer the consequences – (for instance if I stole stuff, I couldn’t expect God to cover my butt and not let me get caught), but if I try to honor the advice that God gives in His Word, then He honors the faith I put in Him to keep my life going according to His will.  And THAT’S what I have faith in.   He has NEVER let me down.

Another experience I had that built my faith was in my old job when I used to work full-time.  When I got overwhelmed with worries, etc., I used to put my prayer requests into envelopes and seal them and write, “To God,” on the outside of the envelope then put the envelope in one of my desk drawers.  After a period of doing this for quite some time, one day I just decided to open all the envelopes and see what they said.  As I did that, I made a three piles.  One pile was of all the prayer requests that had been answered with a, “yes.”  One pile was of prayer requests that had apparently been denied, and the third pile was of prayer requests which you really couldn’t tell either way, ie: please let my children turn out okay and things like that.  When I finished sorting them, the pile of apparent “no” answers was equal to the pile of apparent “yes” answers and I began to look through them.  Much to my surprise the pile of “no” answers turned out to each contain the exact SAME prayer request on each one… “Dear God, please help me lose weight.”  That was the only prayer request that had been answered, “No,” I thought.  Now, of course, even THAT one has been answered as I only weigh 126 (I have lost 111 lbs over the last year and a half, so even THAT prayer was ultimately answered with a yes).  But even at the time when I thought the answer to that one was a, “No,” the experience had a profound effect on my faith.  I would recommend this exercise to everyone.  Put your requests away somewhere and go back much much later to see what happened with them.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that I don’t look for things to necessarily turn out the way I want them to turn out.  If THAT happened I would have already won lottery several times over!  I do believe, however, that God has got me covered the way HE believes I should be covered and that, ultimately, it is for my best good even if it seems tough sometimes.

My biggest problem is when I see other people suffer and I can’t understand why He’s not intervening.  For myself, I am already thrilled that He intervenes as much as He does.  I know, for myself, that I am such a screw up that ANYTHING He does on my behalf is sheer gift and grace.  I deserve NOTHING whatsoever from Him.  You have NO IDEA how BAD a person I have been and what poor character I have displayed throughout my life.  That God even has allowed me to open my  heart and actually have a relationship with Him amazes me! If that was ALL He did, I would be blessed! The fact that He hasn’t given me a tough life too is incredible and I should NEVER whine about anything even though I do.  My set back, though, is when He doesn’t intervene to make things easier for other people who seem so innocent and needy to me.  Then I get so miserable and begin arguing with Him or my faith gets shaken.  It’s tough to be a part of OD sometimes because I hurt when I read about others’ pain and hardships.  There are several people in here that I am VERY worried about and I pray frantically for those people.  I can only hope that I will get the reward of reading about or hearing about some amazing break-throughs.