This is the second in a series of reflections based on requests from readers. Today it’s a question about living one’s faith. It seems to me that it could be helpful to begin by looking at how faith is described in the Bible. Hint: It’s not about believing in religious authorities, nor about believing (or even understanding) any teachings. Faith is always about God.
Abram and Sarai left their home, family, people, country, and gods out of some sense of invitation or call. This call, though they sensed it in their hearts, came to them from something or SomeOne outside of them. They didn’t invent it out of a desire for adventure, or for a change of scenery. There was an urgency to respond, to act, to follow this invitation – that their lives would be incomplete, or unfulfilled if they chose to not act on it.
Why? The Bible indicates that Abram and Sarai left the security of what they had known up to that point in their life to go into the unknown because they trusted Whoever or whatever was drawing them in that direction. Trust is the first component of faith. Abram and Sarai were faithful.
We place our trust in what we sense, feel, or have experience of as being reliable. This could be a person or persons, our own intuition, or even a reality that is unknown, yet solid and compelling. Trust is not certainty. It always involves some risk. But whatever risk is there seems worth it. Faith is primarily unconditional trust in the absolute reliability of God.
Of course, this trust does not and cannot guarantee that things will happen, or turn out, the way we would like them to. Trust implies that, whatever happens, there is opportunity that some good will come out of our response. Faith asks for our wholehearted “yes” to God. What we do, and how we do it, flows from this deep trust, especially in the face of the unknowable.
A second component of faith as depicted in the Bible is a growing and intimate relationship with God. Let’s look at Moses. Moses, according to the biblical narrative, had fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian. He married and tended the flocks of his father-in-law. One day he noticed a bush in the wilderness that seemed to be on fire, yet it wasn’t burning. Moses went to see what it was and God, a god Moses didn’t know, encountered him there, and called him to set his people free from their slavery.
Moses was reluctant and tried to talk God out of this mission. God insisted. When God insists, it’s better to go along with what God asks. Moses did lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Obviously he had the skills necessary to do this. God knew this. Over the years Moses had repeated encounters with God and their relationship deepened and grew. Through these personal meetings, Moses’s faith became stronger.
We can have, grow, and develop our relationship with God through spending time together regularly, listening and talking, in prayer. Through these personal conversations with God we can come to know what God’s desires are for us and for all creation. Out of this intimacy we can live and act more and more as God desires.
A third component is highlighted in the Gospel of John – believing is seeing. In English we have the saying seeing is believing. It’s as if we need to experience something with our senses before we can consider trusting. John’s Gospel turns this around. When we believe we see. But what do we see? Through growing trust in, and evolving intimacy with God, we can begin to see reality from God’s perspective – which is very different from ours. We can see God present with, in, and through our very humanity.
God’s perspective of all-inclusive love and compassion moves us to act only out of love and compassion. When we trust, come to know God through prayer, and see through God’s eyes more fully, our actions help to establish God’s Reign here on earth. Believe it!