The economic future seems bleak, but the trouble isn't just financial.
Casual conversation reveals people are more than just troubled: they've looked at their lives, tallied their prospects and realized there's a huge difference between what they expected and what they've come to expect from life. Americans seem less confident than ever things will get better, with many hinting "I don't know how I'm going to make it" because they've lost confidence not only in themselves, but also in what they believed.
--
If our Faith is rooted in the notion "God wants me to be happy" or "God will never let anything bad happen to me" or "Bad things only happen to sinners," then dad losing his job one month and the bank calling to threaten foreclosure the next month might deliver a faith-shattering shock.
But those things do happen ... even to God-fearing, righteous, church-going and tithing people: the Bible nowhere teaches that Salvation is an immunity shot from either sin ... or from living in a world wallowing in sin.
--
I mean to be encouraging, not trite or disparaging: truly Bad Things can and do happen to people who love God beyond everything else. Just read the Bible and see for yourself. But Bad Things happening shouldn't be the end of our Faith: bad things happening should unleash our Faith, and reveal God's power, grace and total sovereignty through us.
Hmmmm, Faith seems sure seems easy when the ball's rolling downhill, when everything's going according to plan and we're receiving lots n' lots of blessings along the way. But what about when life starts going wrong and the ball suddenly feels like it's gonna roll right over top of us?
How am I gonna make it?
--
I keep re-reading the gospel chapters describing Christ's prayers in Gethsemane. What slaps my face is that despite knowing what the rest of his human life had in store, despite the fact that unlike us Christ lived a totally sin-free life, Jesus didn't bail or ask God to beam him back up to Heaven to avoid the agony of the cross. Nossir.
He could've and you and I would've, but Jesus didn't call down legions of angels with fire to flame the Sanhedrin's guards into temple tater tots to save himself from crucifixion. Nor did Christ pray to his Father, "I don't know how I gonna make it, so get me out of here!"
What Christ did instead was surrender and submit to his Father's will: Not mine, but your will be done. That's what perfect Faith means. Christ's Faith was in God's will and purpose; not Faith in "God wants me to be happy" or "I have faith God will fix things and get me out of this."
Faith isn't at all about what we expect or want God to do: Faith is all about submission and surrender.
We're not used to hearing this, but tough times pretty clearly reveal whether our Faith is based on expecting God's submission to our comfort and satisfaction, or whether our Faith is founded on complete and joyful surrender to God's will and to His purpose.
No matter what.
