True Faith

That's the thing, I guess, about real faith - about what a real faith looks like in the real world. 

When I wear a cross necklace, the world knows what that means. Or thinks it does. The world understands this as a sign that I belong to Jesus, that I believe in Him, that I probably worship Him, and that I may even belong to a church. 

When I demonstrate peace in the face of adversity, the world doesn't know what to do with this. 

The world mistakes it for calm. For some kind of mastery that I must have over my very normal human anxiety. The world mistakes it for indifference, as if maybe I just don't even care what happens to me. Very close to indifference is depression; maybe I'm just already defeated, and I've given up. The world tries to put peace into its framework, but it doesn't fit. So the world doesn't know what to do with it and can't understand it. 

The same is true with joy. Joy is another one of those things I have fought hard for in my life, one of those gifts that comes out of my close relationship with God. I have been called happy, but happy isn't it. I have been called happy-go-lucky, but that isn't it, either. I have been accused of being naive, like maybe I just don't understand what is happening, so of course, it doesn't affect me like it does everyone else. But no, that's joy. True joy. 

The same is true with forgiveness. Folks have heard my life story, even recent chapters of it, and they assume I must be harboring some kind of secret vendettas against some folks. They apologize when they accidentally mention someone in front of me, someone they know I haven't had a positive experience with. They apologize when they mention anything positive about that person, like it's somehow wounding for me. They don't believe me when I say that I have forgiven someone, that I want the best for them, that I'm okay seeing them do good things and succeed in life. The world doesn't know how to let go of its grudges, and it kind of relishes wishing ill on broken persons who have wounded them, but faith doesn't work like that. I can truly forgive and wish someone the best. Why would I want someone to be a thoroughly horrible person who goes around wounding others all the time? What kind of sick satisfaction is that supposed to give me? But the world doesn't understand forgiveness. 

The same is true with gentleness. The world doesn't understand why I don't go to the mat for myself, why I don't fly off into a rage, why I am not inconvenienced by the slowness of others to catch on. The world doesn't understand patience, how I can afford to wait for someone else to "get it" on their own. Why I'm not pressed by the tyranny of the urgent like everyone else seems to be. 

Friends, faith shapes us. It gives us all these things that the world sees, but it doesn't understand. That it witnesses, but it doesn't process. It can't conceptualize of the things of faith without the framework of the cross to guide it. So it misinterprets. It mislabels. It questions. It asks us, how is that even possible? 

It's possible because I am already the thing I very most need to be in all the world - deeply loved. And that love, the love of God, gives me the opportunity to see the world through a lens not of scarcity and want, but of abundance and grace. 

It doesn't mean I'm not affected by the things that happen here. I have the same anxieties, the same fears, the same questions that anyone else would have in my situation, whatever that situation happens to be at the time. I am very, very human, and if you spend five minutes talking to me, you can't miss that. 

But I am also very, very loved. And that love changes everything. 

That's not calm, my friends; it's peace. It's not happiness; it's joy. It's not indifference; it's grace. 

It's faith. Lived out to the best of my ability, no matter what page of my story we're on.