Faith and feeling
He asked me how I was feeling and I grinned a little—only a little—and said, "Aw, you don’t wanna know." He nodded like a man that knew from experience what I meant and he grinned a little—but only a little. We were silent for a moment and then he said, "And how’s your faith?" It lights me up when I think of my response—a genuinely felt and deeply grounded response. I said something like, "Now that’s a whole different story! Nothing seems ever to affect that." I’m not overly confident that I would be able to say that if I were living under extreme circumstances for a very long time. As it is, I have my share of troubles and disappointment, but I don’t live in Darfur or Zimbabwe or big city streets or other such models of purgatory.
But aren’t our feelings a gauge of how healthy our faith is? Um...not really! The notion that if you truly trust God you won’t feel pain or loss or disappointment is silly. Trust in God doesn’t exempt a man or woman from hurt or frustration or anxiety. Yes, I know we hear preachers and read authors who say otherwise and I know they can quote texts while they’re doing it. And worse—because it’s more plausible— they tell us when the roof falls in on us we shouldn’t stagger under the burden. Faith is supposed to take the pain out of the pain and the weight out of the load, don’t you know. (Faith in God through Jesus Christ is not the burdensome thing. It’s an easy yoke and a light burden; but in a fallen world it generates the stress of swimming against the current. Click here.)
Imagine one of the glib ones asking Habakkuk, "How are you feeling?" "Awful!" Habakkuk would tell him. "I just heard a message I don’t like. I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled." (Habakkuk 3:16) If a modern believer answered this way, a modern triumphalist response might well be, "Oh, that’s too bad. I thought you really trusted in God. If you did you wouldn’t feel this way." Had someone said that to Habakkuk he would have said, "Oh, but I do trust! Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no fruit, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights." (3:17-19)
This is one of the loveliest, strongest confessions in the entire Bible and he makes it while he trembles and while his legs can hardly support him. The same pounding heart and quivering lips that confessed his awful anxiety defied the anxiety he felt. This is not an unusual case; but even if it were, it would make the case that fear and anxiety can exist in the presence of the profoundest faith.
I can imagine someone coming to the Garden of Gethsemane, hearing Christ sobbing his heart out and asking him how he feels. The Christ would say, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." Peterson renders Mark 14:33-34 this way, "He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. He told them, ‘I feel bad enough right now to die.’ " The major versions speak of Christ as deeply distressed and agitated. A shallow view of faith in God would find this inexplicable in Christ. "Oh, and here I thought you were the one human above all humans that trusted in God. Instead I find you an emotional wreck at this point." Hebrews 5:7-9 and Acts 2:25-28 add their own comment to Christ’s Gethsemane and cross experience.
It’s clear from scripture (and life) that tribulation and peace, faith and fear can exist together in the same persons. The Christ said, "In the world you will have tribulation but in me you will have peace" (John 16:33).
Faith doesn’t obliterate feelings. In truth, sometimes faith sharpens the pain. Questions like "why me?" seem more appropriate coming from those who trust God and are faithful to him. This point needs further development and there’s a lot to say that moves in this direction.
So we shouldn’t think we’re faithless because we’re sensitive to pain and frustration and disappointment. Faith defies these realities but theyare realities. The believing person feels them, may have more than his or her share of them, but the presence of his or her faith denies lordship to them!
I think we should work to ease the pain of people—this we’ve been called to—but whatever else we’re called to, we’re called to deepen one another’s trust in God. Maybe having genuinely enquired after the situation and feelings of some poor believing soul we should then major in grounding, deepening and enriching their faith. Faith defeats fear and anxiety not always by obliterating them (though surely there are many situations in which it does just that) but by rising above them in the name of the God and Father of our Lord Christ.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.