Living By Faith?
You would think by the way people talk about it that “living by faith” would be easy. Well-meaning believers glibly encourage others during times of uncertainty to just have faith. Well to be Captain Obvious, this is not easy.
Recently, my friend felt a sure calling to move his family to from Dallas, Texas to Denver, Colorado. After months of praying and searching he finally found a job with a great company making more money than he had ever made. Just after a short three months of work, he was laid off because the company needed to make cut-backs in this cloudy economy. Now he is jobless with bills piling up. Are my only words to him that I love him and his family and to have faith?
I am in a season of angst ready for my career to begin sitting with a pile of degrees and using them to wait tables. I have been searching and praying for direction and my next move. I look to the heavens for a sign of direction, a lead, a nudge and all I get is the sound of nature singing its song. I feel like pilot flying an airplane over a landing strip waiting for the signal, the go-ahead to land. I am running on fumes and I keep getting the signal to wait, be patient and do another loop. Can I make it another loop? Do I have faith to believe that the fumes in my tank will last another loop?
And these are not even the hard or extreme cases of believers who are having to live by faith. I feel shallow wallowing in my “hard time” when I know people who are dealing with far worse times of doubt, struggle, and uncertainty. I think we can all agree that living by faith is not as easy as we make it sound. I know that seasons of stretching make us stronger and that these light and momentary troubles will one day pass, but in the meantime can we just be honest and admit that living by faith is hard?
