The Enemy of Faith

For years now I've been on a one-man crusade to get people to stop thinking of faith as just "belief" and frame it more like "trust".  There's nothing wrong with "belief" in the abstract.  We use it all the time in the Apostle's Creed, for instance.  (Although come to think of it, you'd probably be just as well served by saying/thinking, "I trust in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.")  But in practice our modern society has contaminated the world "belief".  To us it means something we decide in our heads, something that we give credence to and therefore it exists (or should exist).  When we use "belief" we mean, "Do you believe in UFO's?" or "Do you believe we should have stricter gun control laws?"  Although the forms of alien spaceships and prospective laws are external to us, the importance they hold--their reality, if you will--depends on what we think internally.

By this definition, "Do you believe in God?" means the same as, "Do you think God exists?  Do you subscribe enough to him that he has power in your life?"  While that makes perfect sense to the world, we know those questions are wholly inadequate when applied to God.  As we asked on Christmas Eve, how would you feel if someone came up to you and said, "Congratulations!  I believe you exist!"?  Or, "Lucky you, I'm going to choose to let you influence certain aspects of my life!"  We're supposed to feel honored by this?  How would your boss feel if you said those things to him or her?  He'd be like, "Excuse me?!?"  Now imagine how GOD...THE GOD...feels about this definition of "belief".

Belief in God has little to do with fixing things up a certain way in your head.  It has nothing to do with choosing what kind of influence a deity will have over your life.  It doesn't even have much to do with what you agree or disagree with.  The simple word "trust" comes closer to describing our right relationship with God than all of those other ideas combined.

One of the biggest problems with equating faith with belief instead of trust is that it causes us to mis-identify faith's enemies.  In the past we've mistakenly set up faith as a contest between "believers" and "unbelievers", sacred and secular, church-goers and atheists, members and non-members, good folks vs. bad folks, moral elements of society vs. immoral, and so on.  Those battles never resolve, nor do they bear any faithful fruit.  We just move on from one to the next, finding new criteria in each generation to divide "us" against "them".

The enemy of faith isn't some crowd of "unbelievers" somewhere.  The enemy of faith isn't someone who disagrees with you, is different than you, or any of those things.  Those perceptions come directly from a misunderstanding of faith itself.  When you define faith as trust, the true enemy becomes clear:

It's fear.

Fear and trust cannot abide in the same place for long.  We experience both in our moments of indecision but one or the other will soon win out.  Fear will do everything it can to convince you that trust is a bad idea. What bride or groom, standing in fancy clothes preparing to walk down the aisle, has not said, "Whoa.  Maybe I shouldn't be doing this"?  Is not the classic reaction upon discovering you are going to have a baby soon, "YES!!! WHOOOO!!!  Ummm...  Errrr....uh oh.  What have I gotten myself into?"  Whatever the promise is, even if it's the most glorious you can imagine, fear will try to convince you not to trust/believe in it.

This is totally understandable...totally human.  Fear has been a valuable tool in our evolution.  Without it we wouldn't be here, as our ancestors would have all been crushed while smiling stupidly at oncoming, charging mastodons.  Fear kept us safe, triggering our fight or flight instincts whenever we were threatened.

Fear is a valuable tool even today.  Fear of what people will think keeps me considering my public words and actions.  Fear of having my children grow up into a non-productive life keeps me raising them well.  Fear of several things encourages me to work out every day.  But the key word here is tool.  Fear can be useful when employed skillfully as part of our bag of tricks to get through life.  Fear is a horrible master.  99% of life's problems--and 99.99% of faith issues--cannot be solved by either the fight or flight option.  Fighting and fleeing don't preserve the good things in life, they take us away from them.

When fear encourages you to do something well, making sure it's fit for others, then it has served its purpose.  When fear discourages you from doing the thing at all, then it has made the leap across its proper boundary and become your new faith.  And like true faith, fear is jealous.  It will brook no rivals.  Head down the path of fear and you will find the ability to trust slipping from you.  Along with that trust go love, hope, confidence, and all the good things that they bring.  Ironically enough, losing these things is what most people fear in the first place.  By catering to that fear, they make it come true.

As we walk through our daily lives, most of our decisions can be broken down to this basic question:  Fear or Trust?  Fear or Faith?  Which one will you live by?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)