New Perspective on Faith - Part I

~Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.~ Hebrews 11:1

This past semester has been trying to say the least. I have been truly tested in my faith in God. I used to think that I trusted in God...until I realized I didn't. Have you ever had one of those moments when you were certain you could do something, knew how to handle it perfectly [or at least sufficiently] only to realize that you couldn't do so at all? It's one of those moments like when you were in Kindergarten and the 3rd graders were all going across the monkey bars and you know for a fact you can do it too. So you climb the ladder and reach your tiny hand to grab ahold of the first bar. You grip tightly. Confidence rises...you know that you can do it. You swing forward onto your next hand, you've got this. Another hand and it keeps going...but suddenly your strength begins to fail. Your fingers slip. Stubbornly you try to grip tighter, but it's too late. You feel sick as the bar begins to slip away. Your feet kick, as if they can help to push you back up. But no use. Finger by finger you slip. Shame washes over you before your last finger even slips from the bar. Your eyes are hot with unshed tears. And then the fall. Hardly noticeable. The pain from the fall is nothing compared to the overwhelming shame and guilt. Then you run. Run from the embarrassment. Run to save face as best you can. Run to feel your shame alone.

That is what it feels like to realize that you do not really have the faith in God that you think you do. I realized that this semester [more of this story to follow, but this is just my intro to a series of posts I want to publish on Faith], but the wonderful thing about falling off the monkey bars is that you have the chance to get back on them. You have the chance to actually learn how to climb across. For as long as that child thought she knew how to cross, she would never learn. But as soon as we fail, we finally get the chance to learn to do something right. So, as long as I thought I was trusting God when really I wasn't, I would never actually be able to trust him. But in failing, I was able to learn the hard process of building trust in God. And I pray that as I post what I have learned about Faith, perhaps it may help others as well.