If you’re reading this right now, you – like me – might have experienced such doubt over everything God has said or done that you’ve wondered: Have I lost my faith? Or, at best, am I a completely faithless Christian?
Suffering for anyone, including us, doesn’t make sense. Children who starve to death, young moms who die while giving birth, it doesn’t just feel senseless – it smacks of cruelty.
And then there’s our own suffering, which as selfish human beings, resonates pretty loudly, too (no matter how we try to lift ourselves from self-absorption).
The world, our own minds can offer such despair that it overwhelms any heavenly choir we once thought we heard.
If we still retain faith he’s somewhere, it’s either lost in space or indifferent in demeanor.
Or maybe we assume better. Well, okay, The Good Shepherd is Good, but he’s looking for other sheep and his trail has gone cold anyway.
Dear Lord, we’re lost sheep too, so why don’t you make your way over here?
And while we can understand some suffering as the “growth” kind, most seems senseless or cruel, and we’ve been taught to excuse that kind with spiritually high-minded cliches (“mysteries of God,” “The Lord is still on the throne,” “it’s all for your good”) that are all absolutely true, but also don’t have the ring of truth to us.
The ring of truth matters to our every day life.
It just does.
Maybe you don’t struggle with this (I’m truly grateful that you don’t), but I don’t think I’m alone in drifting to these places. They can feel like blasphemous thoughts, but they’re also ones that plagued Job repeatedly and that our minds couldn’t stop if they tried.
And if all this mental wandering finally settles on a single phrase for the “faithless Christian,” it would be this: “Has God indeed said?”
Has he said he’s here? That he’s good? Has he promised me, personally, his salvation and delivered his spirit, as promised?
The has-he’s are limitless.
And we all know where that question comes from. And we all know, as human beings, that is exactly the question that threatens our faith.
I’ve been there tons, and will continue to fall into that pit throughout my life.
But if you’re a Christian, no matter where your mind has gone, no matter how many questions seem to have settled on a place of doubt, you never can quite shake His spirit, can you?
He doesn’t seem to be there, but somehow you know he’s there, that he’s living inside you, and it’s not how the world might interpret “God lives inside me” because that implies really great things. And there are wondrous things.
But the presence of his Spirit doesn’t just pass understanding in a positive way (“peace“), it also passes understanding in its relentless hold on us, even when faith seems to have slipped away. What’s with that?
That’s the part that passes understanding to me.
Well, here’s what’s with that.
This line from 2 Timothy 2:13: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.”
We often assume “faithless” involves some kind of serious backsliding like David hooking up with a married woman, killing her husband, and apparently feeling “no-biggie” until Samuel pays a visit.
But even if we saw Bathsheba from the roof, decided to turn our eyes, walked down the stairs and into our prayer closet (subduing that crouching sin thing), even if we did all the things that Christ urges the faithful to keep doing, that Paul assumes will be the consequence of it … nevertheless, we can find ourselves, faithless.
The Greek for “faithless” in Timothy, according to Strong’s Concordance, is “disbelieve,” “refuse belief” or as Thayer puts it, “refusing to be persuaded by God.”
That’s about as faithless a thought we can get.
So we think:
“I’m giving up. There’s no possible way this house of cards can survive. That’s, frankly, what it is – a house of cards. My faith. God.”
Yes, a house of cards shouldn’t survive, no matter how elaborate. Something will obliterate it. Eventually, it will fall.
But even when we’re in “house of cards mode”, God’s Spirit answers with something like this: That “house of cards” is built by me, buddy. You might think it has no foundation. Guess what. You’re wrong. I’m never letting that structure fall – no matter how dismal your view of it, no matter how you doubt it. I will hold it up.
Or, as Jesus explicitly promised: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”
We usually think the rain, wind, and floods refer to the world’s persecution, to the trials of life.
In a way, yes.
But when we link this to Timothy, it’s quite clear that the strongest rain, wind, and floods form in our minds and express themselves as doubts about God, and it’s those thoughts that threaten our structure.
Sure, something external to us – a sprinkle, a gusty breeze, a dark cloud – might chip away at our faith, but the hellstorm of questions from within us is the true battering ram.
So why doesn’t our house fall, even when we’ve fallen?
Why have you kept at this thing for so long? Why have I? Why has any Christian?
Not because we’ve finally thought our way out of doubts. Good luck.
Not because we’ve had an experience that lifts us from the feelings of the faithless. Bonne Chance.
Why then does our house stand?
Jesus answers: “Because it had been founded on the rock.”
That’s the Spirit’s job, and it’s exactly why he’s promised that when we are faithless, he will remain faithful.
If God lives inside you, you can never get away from him. Even if your mind gets away from you.
You can try, but like Job, you can’t go anywhere his Spirit isn’t. Even if the Shepherd doesn’t seem to hold you, the Spirit has a hold on you.
Every Christian is a faithless Christian, at one point or another. You are not alone in thinking your faith is crumbling.
In fact, the very idea of “building on a rock” presupposes that we’ll be faced with internal thoughts that so shake us that our faith would wash away except for one thing. Our foundation was built by supernatural hands.
Hands of unbreakable strength, softened by unshakable mercy. That’s an impossible structure for doubt to finally conquer.
The God who crushed Satan didn’t go through the cross to see you and me fall under our small, human faithlessness.
If your foundation is God, you can move, but he will not.
And we have to remember this crucial distinction: You and your mind are not the foundation. He is.
You might see your house falling apart, but his hands built it to last forever. Trust his hands over your eyes, every time.
And if you can’t right now, here’s the Spirit’s news for you: He still ain’t letting go.
That’s why the end of all our travels is written in a place beyond human eyes, where you’ll finally see the Author and Finisher were truly the Foundation, as well. You weren’t the foundation, and neither was I.
And we’ll see that our precious savior was good, that he was faithful when we were faithless, that he held us through the very end.
Christ died for you and me. He certainly lives for us. And we will certainly have life because of him.
If you’re depressed, or struggle with any aspect of mental health (as I very often do)…
For readers from the United States….
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
You can always get in touch with me using the sidebar link for questions.
[Screencap: The cinematographic masterpiece, The Cold War. Trigger warning: Don’t watch if you’re depressed!! And even if you’re not depressed, still trigger warning. It’s a beautiful but deeply melancholy movie, even when you’re feeling well. When you’re not, then skip it].
Oh and as for the song below – sometimes, all we can say is: “Hold me, Jesus, because I’m shaking like a leaf.”
What fragile leaves we feel. What precious ones to him.
