You Just Don't Have Enough Faith

A friend of mine lost his job - laid off after working diligently to turn around the logistical operations of his company. Then, his own parents told him, "If you had more faith, you wouldn't have been laid off."

I've known more than a few people who became sick, anything from a routine cold to cancer, only to be told by their fellow church members that obviously they didn't have enough faith. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been sick, they say.

I'm sure most of you have also know people (or have been the person) to receive such disheartening "comfort" in your time of need. I hope none of you have been the one dishing it out. The Old Testament book of Job shows us that this kind of advice is older than the Bible itself.

However, these examples are a bit too obvious, almost comical, if they weren't so harmful and uncaring. There is a more subtle, more insidious strain of this disease. Something bad happens to you, something painful, some form of loss, some minor or major disaster, and you begin to wonder, "OK, what did I do wrong? I suppose I didn't pray enough. If I had just been more diligent to read my Bible. God, I know I'm not living right ... are You trying to teach me something?"

Although it sounds different, it's really the same kind of bad advice as "You just don't have enough faith. Otherwise..." And you're the one giving yourself that bad advice!

I try to imagine someone who spews this kind of counsel and how he or she would give the Apostle Paul spiritual guidance. The folks in Antioch pelt Paul with stones and kick him out of town for preaching Christ. "Paul, if you just had more faith, then they wouldn't have hurt you." Paul gets falsely accused of crimes and spends a total of four years in prison before he gets a trial, and an unfair one at that. "Paul, you must not have been reading your Bible enough. Otherwise, you'd be a free man." Paul gets a "thorn" in his flesh, and instead of discovering that God's grace is sufficient for him, he's told by his friend that obviously, he's not praying with enough faith (2 Cor 12:1-10).

Paul has a different opinion about his life, from 2 Cor 4:

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8 We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed, 10 always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body. 11 For we who are alive are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal body.

Yes, the lack-of-faith response is easily debunked as the necessary cause for specific suffering. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

The truth is: You don't have enough faith. You just don't. And, perhaps, some of the things we suffer, we suffer because we don't have enough faith. But we can't let the cold-hearted, ill-informed, judgmental comments of bad counselors keep us from realizing that, in fact, we don't have enough faith, and if we had more faith, our lives would be different. Not necessarily easier or more pleasant, but certainly different. More like the life of Christ, specifically.

"But I can't just turn on faith like a water faucet!" You can't? Actually, you can, because what you're waiting for is not faith but confidence. Faith is merely choosing to live as though some claim is true. If you tell me there's $100 waiting for me on the kitchen counter, I don't need a wave of boldness to move me like the wind into the kitchen. If I believe you, I'll just decide to get up and walk into the kitchen. If I don't believe you sufficiently, I'll keep watching baseball on TV. Just like a water faucet.

What bolsters faith into strong confidence is not a flood of sure feelings, but rather acts of faith already done. I may not have confidence that $100 is in the kitchen ... until after I walk in there by faith. Then I'll be confident. Of course, it matters who I'm trusting in and whether or not I'm trusting something he or she actually promised. But faith, whether justified or not, is acting as if a claim is true. And we don't have enough of that.

So, you don't have enough faith. Get over it. More to the point, you might be confusing faith with confidence. Accept what God says for Himself, and as simple as getting up and walking into the kitchen, walk and act and talk and decide and speak like the promise is true. That's an act of faith, whether or not it is all that confident.

Confidence will come if and only if 1) what God says is trustworthy, and 2) we walk as if it is long enough to discover that it actually is.

It'll all be all right

I recently had an opportunity to face the reality that not everything is always going to be OK. We live relatively safe, predictable lives where things just work (most of the time), minor injuries don't become life-threatening emergencies, and our jobs will be there tomorrow (again, most of the time). Many societies today still don't have that kind of confidence. We live in a blessed time in a blessed place - it's relatively infrequent that we must face the reality that things could become very, very not OK. But once in a while, we are forced to - someone passes away, someone is in a horrible accident, someone gets a horrible disease.

For me this time, it was Lynne having surgery. It wasn't even a high-risk surgery or a life-threatening illness. I had very little anxiety leading up to the surgery. But the surgery took quite a bit longer than we were told to expect, which opened the door for me to speculate what bad things might be happening. When I was finally called back to talk with the surgeon, waiting in a small, drab conference room, I realized that it was possible he didn't have all good news. Or, he might have very bad news.

When he showed up, the initial news was all positive. Then he explained some of the complications they encountered in the surgery. Then he told me that there was an unexplained, concerning drop in her blood oxygen level during surgery, which halted the procedure until they could bring it back up. Everything turned out fine, but it forced me out of my overly cavalier attitude to face the reality that it's not always going to be OK. It didn't cause me anxiety, but it did force me to think through some things I've had the luxury of ignoring.

Was my confidence leading up to the surgery based on statistics of medicine or the sovereignty of God? This was a relatively routine, lower-risk surgery. The statistics on there being severe complications is incredibly low. There is every reason to expect the good outcome that we ended up having. But was I enjoying a robust peace because I merely relied on statistical analysis, or because I knew that even if the worst might happen, God's sovereignty still reigns over every situation?

If my confidence is in the track record of doctors, then my confidence is completely circumstantial. It may be well-founded by the data, but sometimes life does the unusual, defying the statistics. And eventually, the statistics run down to the point where they are against you. Clearly, that confidence is faulty.

If my confidence is in the sovereignty of God, then my confidence is not circumstantial. It doesn't matter whether what happens complies to or beats the odds. The odds can deteriorate completely against me, and still I have something to put my confidence in. That confidence doesn't mean that everything will work according to my desires. But it does mean that everything that does happen is within the purposeful, attentive control of the eternal God. Even when things are not OK, they are in fact OK. Perhaps painful, tearful, and confusing, but never without purpose, never out of control, never stronger than the God who will one day make all things new.

Lynne and I have been overwhelmed by your expressions of concern, your offers to help, the food, the notes, the texts, and even the sensitivity to guard our privacy. You bear evidence of the sovereign God's care.