I have realized there are plenty of conditions for doubt in this world.
Doubt seems to have become our second nature to some extent. Doubting God’s goodness. Doubting God’s plan. Doubting God’s unconditional love. How could we not? Finding the conditions for faith amongst the rubble of life seems so much harder. What in the world could make us believe that faith would be worth it with so much loss or discouragement surrounding us. I am currently reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller and I love his approach to doubts:
“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts – not only their own but their friend’s and neighbors’. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt.”
To be authentic here I must confess living fully in happy days scare me. I’m insistently doubtful and insecure. Paralyzed by the fear of what might be lurking behind the shadows.
Do you feel this with me?
A stockpile of life…. feeling fears of being tolerated and working overtime to be truly accepted, disenchanting disappointments, real rejections, unhealthy expectations, and broken experiences the last few years have built a bit of a fortress around my heart.
This isn’t to describe self-pity it is to define human.
I catch myself living skeptical of happy days and that breaks my heart. You may not think that about me catching a quick picture or video or brief exchange, but that’s what is true of the lens I see life through. Must of the things that make us human impact our response to joy more than pain. I want to surface with courage, but I’ll surrender my arrogance to say most days instead of being “hidden in Christ” I’d choose to “hide out in me”.
Faith isn’t always about walking brave through pain. Faith is also having the courage to embrace happy days. Hopelessness is a poverty of imagination. However, to be fair I think we could feel as if our imaged lives have failed us…and the truth is that they probably have. The juke with a biblical imagination is that it has roots and wings. The willingness to be hopeful ignites an imagination with a root system. Rooted strongly anchored in God’s unconditional love and wings free to fly in His endless wonder.
Last night the sky was on fire. Instead of indulging my knee jerk reaction to manage the beauty with the overlay of realism I simply surrendered my internal perspective to the uncontrollable offering of a God who loves me. It was a decision. It was as quick as a thought invading my mind. In the timeframe of an inhaled breath I had the opportunity to exhale a choice. To allow myself to be loved by the glow. By the way my people allowed themselves to enjoy it. By the fact that we were all together. Abiding not in the shadows, but in the God who holds our lot secure. This decision to receive didn’t happen because all the sudden I got brave. Or my doubts completely dissipated. It happened once I asked the Holy Spirit to help me receive what He was giving.
A breath prayer that goes something like this:
Breath in: I am afraid to receive this joy moment
Breath out: I choose to receive this joy moment by faith
We are all powerless without the help of the Holy Spirit. Life is too hard and coming in too fast to register each moment. Fear and excitement share the same physiological reaction. The adrenaline that runs through the body when we are scared is the same as when we are excited. The difference is not in how our bodies react, but in how our mind interprets the moment. Regardless of the pain or the joy both lead to the same request: Lord, I am desperately dependent on you to help me.
We may not be able to ignore the aches in the background or the past days of acute struggle or the awareness of unknown futures. Truly, every one of those thoughts flew through my mind like a phoenix in an instant of decision. I ultimately think it is okay for joy to seem vulnerable. It is. It exposes our desperate need for a greater imagination about our lives than we are currently capable of believing. But I genuinely want to encourage our doubt beaten hearts to receive the wonder of bliss this month. If even for a few moments each day. Distilled down to the concentration of its flavor. Allowing it to be the moment it is and nothing more or less.
Because as the days creep into weeks slipping into months the years are passing by. There will be plenty of shadows, but the evening walks with fire sunsets with my tribe are setting beneath the horizon like a vapor. And somewhere tucked down deep inside my willingness to receive these moments of joy in the midst of any doubt I’m allowing the Lord to truly BECOME my strength and song.
Be gracious to yourself if this resonates. May I offer an encouragement to stop pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It is okay if it’s hard. Be gentle on your heart. Surrendering your expectations on how you think things should have gone. How you wish things would have gone. You’ve walked through hard days. God will help you receive good days now too. Let every day this month come in slow. Ask for the Lord to specifically forgive your craving for controlling outcomes or rejecting good days with pervasive dread of what might be ahead. You aren’t alone. It’s okay if you’ve experienced something happy while also navigating hard things too. Just as the Christmas anthem says, “We are victors in the midst of strife”. Happy days can coincide hard days all while we are allowing the Lord to become our strength and our song.
Three ideas to help as we experience Joy:
1. When you feel anxiousness creep into a moment of Joy breath. Simply take a deep breath. Close your eyes and breath in and out.
2. Then look. Truly look around you and notice what is happening. Consider engaging your 5 senses to formulate a memory around the experience of Joy NOW.
3. Journal a quick note or take a picture to remember this experience of Joy when you need to build up your faith.
Art of Becoming ideas this month:
1. The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
2. Reading Psalm 118 out loud slowly at the beginning and end of each day.
3. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see small moments of Joy every day. Maybe even keep a note on your phone or small journal by your bedside to jot them down each night. At the end of the month you could have up to 31 experiences of Joy to recall.