Yesterday I was asked if faith comes easy to me. The word “no” came flying out of my mouth almost before the question was fully voiced. Faith does not come easy for me. Not at all. My stupid brain screams for logic and reason in all things, and the idea of a good, all-present and giving God is often completely opposed to situations I’m faced with. Faith does not make sense.
Somewhere between “occasionally” and “frequently” I go to church, pray, worship purely as an act of will, pushing through the dead things in search of things green and living. I go in hope that direction and worth and peace and the power to get the world undamned will come seeping up through the floorboards and from the words that are spoken and everyone there will splash around in it until we are soaked to the bone and radiant, entranced with and hungry for God, and driven to take Him to anyone else who hungers. Anything less than that feels like a thin Christianity.
But that hasn’t happened in a very, very long time, and I don’t know why. It’s hard to keep holding out for something expecting something cool to drink when it feels like you’re only ever offered dust.
Agnosticism whispers in my ear. When I’m worn down, stressed and frustrated, the only logical options available to me are “God is good” or “nothing is good.” I’m not so blind that I can believe that nothing is good, ergo, God must be good. I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Over and over again. And that keeps me from giving up and jumping ship. Somewhere deep down I am tied to the mast. In that regard, faith is easy.
We all have to work with what we’re given, no? Water or dust, easy or hard, living or dead, we are built up and broken down, and every day we choose what we believe. Does faith come easy for you?
