"Where is your faith?" Jesus asked his disciples in the midst of a stormy sea...
A couple of weeks ago at ST. Helena's, Father Patrick Soule presented "a great perhaps". His perhaps was this: Perhaps, in Matthew chapter eight, Jesus did not say "Where is your FAITH?", inferring that we lacked faith. But perhaps Jesus said, "WHERE is your faith?" Implying the question that asks "Where have you placed your faith? Where is it?"
In the past, I had found myself afraid to speak about difficult circumstances, and unanswered prayers because I was afraid that if I spoke how I felt, my doubts, my fears, my questions, then I would be lacking in faith. When I did speak my fears about a situation, I felt rebuked for not having faith that God would provide. If I had faith, then my mountains would be moved. "Have faith," They'd say, shushing the doubts floating above us, "God's promises will come to pass. You need only to believe."
But wait. Believe in what? That God will bring His promises to pass? That this long awaited moment, most assuredly, will happen. That God will actually do what He says He will? That the mountain will be moved?
I always assumed that they meant these sorts of things to believe in. "Believe that He will, Nakita." I would repeat what they said to myself. "Believe that He will. You have to believe and it will happen." I'm sure these God-loving, God-fearing people did not mean to force such anxiety into my poor little, believing heart that could never quite believe enough. But that's life. That's living in an imperfect world with imperfect people, and being an imperfect person who is sometimes vulnerable to the deception of Satan. But sense then, I have come to a revelation: It is not about the power of our
belief when we are trying to move mountains. Rather, it is the power and beauty of our God and His ability to move the mountain or to carry us over it (whichever He sees fit to do). This whole faith thing is not about whether God will deliver, it's about whether He is enough for us when He doesn't deliver. Just Him. You and Him, alone. Me and Him, alone. It's not the believing in His promises, it's the believing in Him and His HIMNESS that counts.
WHERE is my faith? When I am honest with myself, my faith has been in the coming to pass of God's promise. Surely, God is faithful to bring forth the birthing of His promise in my life, I believed, I repeated to myself, as I was so desperate. But I was desperate for the promise, more desperate, perhaps, than I was for God.
WHERE is my faith? I have left it in the hands of God.
My faith is not in what I believe God will do, but it is in who He already is. It is in His surrounding presence. That is where I have left my faith.
It is in the end of the story, in Matthew chapter eight, that the disciples find themselves asking each other, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey Him?" Their question was not focused on what Jesus had done or the storm that He had delivered them from, but it was focused on His character. This was a sort of question being asked by men who inquired to know Christ. "What sort of man is this..?" I can almost hear their awe-filled question. Perhaps, it was a question that began as a whisper, a question that slowly grew in strength and excitement as the voice filled with an understanding, a knowing of the Christ and who He is, a belief.
Perhaps, this is why we wait. So that we can learn things like this. God will make you wait for years to receive His promises, only for you to find out that He is the promise. And He has been waiting for you the entire time.
Shout out loud
words seeping from beneath
his broad chest.
Quiet, hesitant,
wanting of love.
Brash sound rising from above him,
cascading over him,
filling his thoughts, his mind, his heart.
The fear that often grips his soul.
He fights for control.
Loss
losing what he couldn't hold.
Pale blue pieces in his palms,
Stories shattered along the ocean floor.
The night sky rising to awake him,
and his pieces of the moon.
Morning sunlight illuminating his brown skin,
he is a child awake within,
all this world of his dreams.
trembling, he dreams,
and he caresses the seams
of the pieces of the moon.
The story waits for no one
he says, he says to himself.
he opens his hand,
he stares at his palms,
he stares at the pieces.
He looks for the moon.
