Faith

“Faith is like a little seed, if planted it will grow” is a line from a song I sang as a child in church. I woke up the other morning with this song in my head, and it has stayed in my head for the last few days. I have been experiencing somewhat of a faith crisis the last few weeks. I have something weighing heavily on my heart and mind, and its existence has really caused me to consider what faith means in my life. The song has other lyrics including: “Faith is knowing the sun will rising, lightning each new day.” Which got me thinking…faith is more than just something we plant. Like any seed, you can’t just plant it and walk away. You have to take care of it. We all have some faith in our life. We don’t doubt we will breathe, or that our heart will beat, and when we go to bed at night, we believe we will wake up in the morning. We know that even when it rains, the sun will shine. We don’t question these things, in fact, we don’t even think about them—they are a natural part of life.

So, why do other things in our life that require faith so hard for us to actually put our faith in?

This made me think of my niece, Melanie. She was at my house the other day after school. She was eating an apple. When she finished, she held out the seeds, and said, “I want to plant these, so you can have an apple tree.” I told her she could plant the seeds, but she had to plant them in a sunny spot, and the seeds needed water. She found a sunny spot on the side of the house, and told me it would be okay to plant the tree there because it  rains a lot where we live (16 days this month, and the month is not over, and it’s not hurricane season!) I don’t know if a tree will grow. I believe you have to plant more than one tree, so they can cross-pollinate. I was impressed by the faith 5-year-old Melanie had in tiny seeds to become a blossoming apple tree.

For most of us, though, faith is a struggle. Faith is to have complete trust/confidence in someone/something. That’s hard to do. It’s human nature not to completely give all of ourselves to something/someone. In theory, it sounds like it would be simple. It’s easy to believe in things we can see and prove—such as math and science, but even those beliefs are called in to question at times, as we have seen over the course of the pandemic (not everyone beliefs masks work or that the vaccine is effective). Life throws people in. When people get married, they don’t expect to divorce. When a baby is born, their parents expect them to live a long, healthy life. People make mistakes. Marriages dissolve. Babies contract illnesses. Once our trust/faith is broken, it’s hard to put faith back in people—especially if they hurt you, especially if the hurt was deep. The scar will take a long time to heal. Sometimes, it never will. Other times, it creates a lack of trust in future relationships and interactions.

We all have a person like this in our lives: one we want to put our faith in—to trust whole-heatedly—but for some reason (or another) can’t. I have a person like this in my life. From the deepest part of my soul, I want to put my faith in them, but every time I put my trust in them, and get my hopes up, they find a way to crush that faith and hope. I know I should stop caring, and cut the person out of my life. At times, it feels like it would be easier to do that, but that’s not who I am, or how I operate. I want to have empathy for people. I want to trust people. I want to love people where they are. I want to have faith in humans. I am not perfect, and I don’t think other people should be either. Trust is earned, though. You have to give it AND receive it. It’s not a one-way street. I do have faith in human beings—I inherently believe everyone has good in them, and they want to show that good to others; people don’t want to hurt people. At least, that’s what I would like to believe.

Faith gets tricky when you have to believe in things you cannot see, or things which create doubt. Or when everything you see would tell you otherwise. I have seen people struggle with medical issues, trying to have children, or even waiting to get married. There are lots of things people want, but don’t receive immediately. We live in a society filled with instant-gratification, so it makes sense we want our hopes and desires instantaneously. This is not how life works. People have to wait for things. I have seen people wait (sometimes years) for the things they hope for to come to fruition. Often, their hope—their faith—is rewarded. I watched a friend cry tears as she waited for the husband she thought would never come; my sister was told she would never have children even though she knew she was meant to be a mother (she now has 4); people’s cancer is cured. Their faith sustained them and carried them through their hard times.

Gut instinct is one of those instances that’s hard to trust or have faith in. You feel something, but your logic questions whether you should believe your gut or not. This is one of my own greatest struggles. Several years ago I deeply felt I was going to marry one of my close friends. It was a weird feeling because we had been friends for a few years, and I knew he liked me, but I didn’t think of him as more than just a friend. We began dating seriously. Then, one night, our relationship was over. He had broken my heart. I thought: how could I have put all this faith in him, in this relationship, in my gut, and be so wrong? Looking back I am sure I let doubt creep into the relationship—I let my logic take over and overtake my faith in us and our feelings towards each other. I am sure I held back. I am sure I didn’t put all my faith and trust in him, or the relationship, or my gut.

I wish I would have learned a lesson from the heart break. I did in some respects, but in others, I have fallen back on old habits. I didn’t trust in a relationship or a person enough to make things work. While the relationships were not necessarily the same, the circumstances are eerily similar. It’s interesting to me when we share our feelings of doubt and insecurity with others the response is often, “have faith. It’ll all work out.” It’s a standard response coming from well-intentioned individuals. The advice seems so simple, yet it is not that simple. The gesture and sentiment are well-meaning, but as I mentioned earlier, faith is often not enough. If a person has cancer, they can’t just have faith they will be healed. Though sometimes this does work. Cancer patients have to put their trust in doctors, medicines, and their body to help heal them. The cancer is not going to go away on its own.

Broken pottery doesn’t repair itself. I like the idea of kintsukuroi, which is the Japanese form of repairing broken pottery. Kintsukuroi means to “repair with gold.” If a piece of pottery is broken, it’s not thrown away. It’s repaired with gold or silver. After it is repaired, it is seen as more beautiful than before it was broken. This is how I see tests of faith. Before our faith is tested, we are beautiful, unblemished. Afterwards, we may have a scar or two, but we are stronger and more beautiful for what we have been through. Kintsukuroi also teaches us that there is life after brokenness, and we don’t need to hide from our scars—we can show them, and share them.

Having faith in yourself is often one of the most difficult tasks we have in life. Why? Because we know what our weaknesses are. It’s easy to focus on our imperfections, and why they can/will prevent us from doing what we need/have to. For instance, there were times during my doctoral journey when I didn’t have faith in my skills. I didn’t have faith in myself. I wanted to stop, to give up on my dreams. During those times, I leaned on my personal cheerleaders, people who had more faith in me than I had in myself. Times of struggle and self-doubt are the periods we learn life lessons. It’s during these faith struggles in which we learn empathy for ourselves and for others. We learn how to lift others like others have lifted us.  Hemingway said it wonderfully, “The world breaks everyone and afterward they are strong at the broken places.” When we are broken, we learn how to be strong, and in turn, we can help others be strong in their brokenness.

Many people have religious faith. In the New Testament the English word faith is used from the Greek translated word pistis. The New Strong’s Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words says, “Pistis is used of belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same. ‘Faith’ means trust, confidence, assurance, and belief” (1135). In the Bible (Hebrews 1:11) it says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Often, religious faith is in things we don’t understand and can’t see. We pray for things we wish for, but we pray for them because we have faith that if we pray for them, they will come to pass. If we didn’t have faith, we wouldn’t need to pray. If we didn’t pray, we would either already have what we want (in which case we wouldn’t need faith), or we just don’t trust they will happen. The Bible is full of many instances in which people put their faith into practice. One of my favorite Bible characters, and an excellent life example of how to practice faith, is Paul. When I was in Athens I sat on Mars Hill, or Areopagus, to take in the spot where Paul prophesied from all those years ago. It was on a rock where Paul learned and practiced his faith. Being there was one of my favorite experiences during my time abroad. If you’re ever in Athens, go there. Take in the world. You will not be disappointed.

One thing to note about religious faith is the word faith is often interchanged with belief, but they are not the same thing. You can believe something will happen, but if you don’t put the work in, it’s just belief. Faith requires action. The prayer. The doctors’ visits, etc. Reaching out to people for help, advice—whatever it may be. Sometimes, faith requires us to reach outside of ourselves, our capabilities and understandings, our comfort zone, to seek others. In a sense, faith helps us build community and relationships.

Faith is a complicated thing to understand and to explain to someone else. If you’ve never experienced the miracles, dreams etc. that come alongside faith, you won’t understand someone else’s faith in the things they can’t see or touch. Oftentimes, outsiders don’t understand why people pray in faith for seemingly impossible things. Admittedly, I don’t always understand how other’s faith works. When people ask for prayers for their desires/needs, I pray alongside them. I want to support the people I care about. I believe having faith in something doesn’t hurt anything—even if I can’t understand where the faith is coming from, and what the faith is placed in. If putting faith in something gives people peace and comfort, then that’s a good thing. Truthfully, I don’t believe faith is ever a bad thing to have.

In some ways, we become more innocent when we have faith. Like a child, we trust things will happen when we believe they will. Children whole-heartedly trust the adults in their life. Several months ago, my friend Lori was having a special brain scan. I went with her to her appointment at Duke. I prayed with her that day. Later that night, when I was babysitting the twins, we were saying our nightly prayers. Melanie said hers and ended it with, “I pray Auntie Moe’s friend that her brain won’t be purple anymore” (she had clearly overheard my mom and I talking about the scan). Melanie believed if she prayed for my friend, her brain wouldn’t be purple anymore. Truthfully, the dye had worn off hours before the prayer was spoken, but Melanie trusted if she prayed for my friend, her brain wouldn’t be purple. Her faith was placed correctly.  This moment was an innocent reminder that sometimes faith can be that simple. And sometimes, we need to have it be that simple. Let’s be honest—we need a little more innocence in this world.

James W. Fowler, a North Carolina Theologian suggested there were stages of Faith, much like the stages of grief. He believed these stages were:

    Stage 0 – “Primal or Undifferentiated” faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (i.e. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse). If consistent nurture is experienced, one will develop a sense of trust and safety about the universe and the divine. Conversely, negative experiences will cause one to develop distrust about the universe and the divine. Transition to the next stage begins with integration of thought and language which facilitates the use of symbols in speech and play.

    Stage 1 – “Intuitive-Projective” faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche’s unprotected exposure to the Unconscious, and marked by a relative fluidity of thought patterns.[8] Religion is learned mainly through experiences, stories, images, and the people that one comes in contact with.

    Stage 2 – “Mythic-Literal” faith (mostly in school children), is characterized by persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic. During this time metaphors and symbolic language are often misunderstood and are taken literally.

    Stage 3 – “Synthetic-Conventional” faith (arising in adolescence; aged 12 to adulthood), is characterized by conformity to authority and the religious development of a personal identity. Any conflicts with one’s beliefs are ignored at this stage due to the fear of threat from inconsistencies.

    Stage 4 – “Individuative-Reflective” faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties), is a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings. As one is able to reflect on one’s own beliefs, there is an openness to a new complexity of faith, but this also increases the awareness of conflicts in one’s belief.

    Stage 5 – “Conjunctive” faith (mid-life crisis), acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems. The individual resolves conflicts from previous stages by a complex understanding of a multidimensional, interdependent “truth” that cannot be explained by any particular statement.

    Stage 6 – “Universalizing” faith, or what some might call “enlightenment”. The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice.

Like with many other life situations that come in stages, Fowler believed a person moved fluidly through these stages and could live in one for many years. The important thing I understood from his stages was that a person with faith is always constantly learning and growing. Although Fowler’s perspective was geared toward religion, it can be applied to other ways of examining faith as well.  It’s important in life to always be learning and progressing.

So, have faith your football team will win the Superbowl. Have the faith you will win the lottery and your money woes will be solved. Have faith you will finish the project for work you need to. Have faith in the people in your life. Have faith in the impossible. Most importantly, have faith in yourself. There is no harm in having trust and hope in your heart’s desires. Even if your faith is not rewarded in the way you wish, you will learn about life, yourself, other people, and you will be better for the experience. As trite as it might sound, “everything will work out, and you will be okay.” If nothing else, have faith in that—it will always work out how it’s supposed to, and you will survive and be okay.

I can confirm this. There were things I thought I wouldn’t survive. That if a certain thing did or didn’t happen, I would wallow in tragedy. While I may have waded in tragedy, I have never drowned in it. I have always come out on the other side stronger, wiser, and more resilient. I am a better me for each test of faith I have been through. I promise you your faith will be rewarded similarly.