Years ago a friend gave me one of those little encouragement cards that you typically find in Christian bookstores. It was about the size of a playing card, laminated and featured a pastel colored outdoor scene clearly designed to be peaceful. It said, “Faith that can see every step of the way isn’t really faith at all.”
Normally, I abhor encouragement. Okay, strictly speaking, that’s not true. I abhor insincere encouragement and (cynically) I believe most encouragement is insincere. People say nice things all too often because they want to be seen as nice or because they really want something from you or because they would in some way benefit from the action you might take if encouraged. Rarely does one person encourage the personhood of another.
That said, I am not predisposed to warm fuzzies when I read something like this little encouragement card my friend gave me. In fact, I think she just gave it to me to be nice. There was a note on the back, the content of which I couldn’t even speculate at this point. She may have been using is as creative stationary for all I know, but the message stuck with me. So much so that I kept the card for years and even since losing it, still think often about what it said. I think it speaks to the true nature of faith, and since I have to fight to have faith, it speaks to me.
I want to know. I want to know why things work, what God’s up to, when he’s going to act, how he’s going to provide for me and just when, exactly, things are going to start going my way as a sign of his favor on me.
There are really two kinds of faith in God—one is existential, the other relational. I believe God exists, that he’s good and loving and that Jesus did something great for me and all human kind in sacrificing himself. In fact, I have never really had a hard time believing that God is real and that the Bible is authoritative. I’ve questioned it, wrestled with it, and I always conclude with absolute confidence that there is a God and he is what he claims to be.
Relational faith is entirely different. Relational faith is the faith that fleshes itself out in my daily walk with God. Relational faith doesn’t address existential issues like God’s existence or nature. It addresses my interactions with God. What do I do when he stays behind the curtain, hidden from me, his ways a complete and utter mystery? How do I respond when I feel like Job? When he allows me the experience of running and hiding in caves like David? When he pushes me to my emotional limits like Jeremiah or Hosea? When he decrees that I will suffer for him like Paul?
When I say that faith isn’t faith if it sees every step of the way, this makes sense in regard to both existential faith and relational faith. Existentially, there simply isn’t concrete proof of God, no matter what any well meaning creationist wants to argue. At the end of the day, from a scientific perspective, we just don’t have any solid, scientific evidence to base the existence of God on. In order to believe, you have to have faith.
Relationally, this holds true, as well. I want to hear God, to see him, not to prove his existence, but to validate my relationship with him and his claim that he loves me. And yet, God refuses to offer me proof of these things. I can claim experiences with God as “proof”, and I don’t want to downplay the importance or validity of experiences with God in various forms, but these are not really definitive. A stanch atheist could just as easily argue that what I call an experience with God was really good fortune, coincidence or indigestion. A real relationship with God has to incorporate faith on my part, as there is no way I could know or prove that any of his promises are guarantees apart from faith in his character.
For myself, I have lived three decades with absolute existential faith in God and relatively little relational faith in God. How many Christians could say the same thing? We slip easily into conversations and debates about whether or not God is real but rarely talk about the last time God said something to us. (Frankly, people who do talk about the last time they heard something from God scare most of us. Who hears God? Really?) And yet, relational faith demands that I have interactions and interchanges with God.
Think about this—what kind of God is he if I can assert with certainty that he’s real and that the Bible is authoritative (existential faith), but I don’t believe he really interacts with me as he claims he will (relational faith)? Answer: not a very good God at all. If this were true, he’d be a liar. So what gives? Do I rethink my existential faith or do I adjust my relational faith? The two must be reconciled or my soul lives in a state of contradiction.
adam…your writing is awesome. so expressive and so personally challenging i think for those of us reading it. but for me, this one rasied an insurmountable amount of questions for me because we only know each other to the extent of our few brief exchanges here. still, i thought i’d ask a few…they go like this:
do you love people? i mean really love people? are you the kind of person who would change your lifestyle, or even give up your life, for someone? maybe even someone you don’t know very well?
i see your list of links right next to what i’m writing, but i wonder, what is your real perspective? are you down with the poor, have you visited a developing country? do you have a personal commitment to someone in a less favorable situation than your own?
what kind of time do you take for yourself? not just quiet time in your backyard, but extended no computer, no cells, no ipod vacations to experience nature and solitude? have you visited many national or international natural landmarks?
what’s your relationship like with your significant other? do you know everything there is to know about them? do you relish the moments of mystery, that second of uncertainty on how things might work out with them or how they might process words spoken or events that occur? or does that even matter? or worse, are others around you unable to express themselves in ways that you would view unpredictable? are you in control?
do you like your job? is your life what you wanted it to be? is it unfolding in the direction you want it to go? if so, are you happy? if not, what keeps you from making it so? are you spontaneous? could you drop everything and roadtrip to the coast? on a whim?
i accept that i could be way off base here, but the relational God issue you expressed in your most recent writing i have most often witnessed in people who struggle relationally with other people and have a lack of perspective in their lives. You can totally tell me that i’m out of the loop on this one and i’ll understand…or you could ask me to elaborate. but for now, i’ll leave you with that…
better days.
ray
left by ray on 06.28.2007 at 12:28 pm