Faltering Faith

There are times in the Journey when God seems far away.

The longer this goes on, the more we doubt our own history with Him: our past relational experiences with Him.

We feel alone. And feeling alone is amplified when we have children looking to us. Needing us to lead and encourage them in their journey.

There are many valid reasons why God seems far away at times. All of them are either intended for our growth or contribute to our growth. But how – practically – do we press on?

For me, it is rarely Christian apologetics which help me. It is my relational history with God I cannot deny: ways He’s met me, intervened, and has obviously led me on a wild and adventurous journey – sometimes in miraculous ways.

But in these moments we don’t feel His faithfulness. We can only remember His faithfulness. Sometimes only vaguely so.

There was a time one of our children was struggling with faith questions. I happened to also be struggling in that season. At that time it seemed "too much" to advocate for a God I believed in but felt distanced from – especially to someone I cared deeply about.

In our family spiritual rhythms I felt I was leading blindly. And without feeling.

Even with my seminary training – perhaps because of it – I needed to be re-introduced to the miraculous story of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, He showed me I needed to be amazed by His story in a fresh way. Even in my season of doubt.

Here is what we did:

During our evening family worship I began reading one chapter each night from the book of Luke, followed by the book of Acts – But in a new way.
We doubted.

I challenged my children to doubt it all with me.

I told them there were some crazy things in this familiar story – things which would obviously cause people to doubt its truth. And for that reason we were going to make a list... Every time we found something unbelievable – miracles or happenings which seemed far fetched – we were going to write them down.

As the list grew we soon saw we needed a second list: a list of validation. There were things in the story which had been prophesied to happen exactly as they did – hundreds of years before! And I had never before noted the relevance of the huge crowds from whom “the news of this [miracle] spread throughout all the surrounding areas”.

Those mobs of locals would have personally known of the lame or the blind or the demon possessed who were healed! They would have personally grown up seeing them about town and knowing their sad story. Now all these locals were corroborating these miracles. Neighbors were telling neighbors. So much so, more crowds gathered, only to witness even more unbelievable things!

Time and again we saw: if these preposterous claims and prophesies fulfilled had happened, it was not a quiet occurrence. It didn't happen in the shadows and only afterwards get talked about. If each one of these things on our list were in any way false, the people of that time – or those who read it when the book of Luke-Acts was circulated – would have laughed at it and relegated it to the delusions of a few. Instead, this wild story was so credible – to thousands who were eye witnesses – the story of Jesus Christ changed history. 

During this season our prayers and singing took on an authenticity and boldness we hadn’t known for a while. Our God was amazing us – as doubters.

We don’t want to subject our children to insecurity and doubt by flaunting our own insecurities. That would be bad parenting.

But there are ways for us – as parent-priests – to be authentic with them. To refuse to pretend everything is really great, when it really isn’t.

Our children are discipled by watching how we journey with God.

By watching us struggle over difficult terrain in our journey – and navigating through it – they inherit those same navigational tools. Those tools will equip them for when it is their turn to lead; perhaps leading many others into the Kingdom along with them.