Losing Faith

It's another Gilmore Girls evening for me.

 

In the episode I've just been watching, one of the characters fears that she has lost her faith, so her friend goes round to give it back to her.

 

It's an interesting concept: losing your faith.

 

No matter what we believe, there are always moments when we question our beliefs.  There are moments when we wonder if what we believe is really true, when we doubt ourselves and our faith.

 

But doubt is not the opposite of faith, or the absence of faith.  It is an integral and inseparable part of faith.

 

In fact, even if you lose faith in something and stop believing it, you will unintentionally and automatically start believing in something else.  We all have faith in something: God, religion, science, nature, ourselves ...

 

Faith is believing in things that we can't see, or don't know for sure.  If it could be proved indisputably, it would be fact.

 

The Bible says,

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

 

[Hebrews 11:1 NIV]

 

Doubting is not the absence or loss of faith, but rather the strengthening of it.

 

Without questioning and doubting and wrestling, our faith never grows or develops.  It is through this doubting and refining and redefining that our faith is strengthened.

 

We cannot have faith without doubt. 

 

 

Love Is A Verb

I have been enjoying another series of the Gilmore Girls this evening. 

 

At one point, Lorelai and her daughter (who is at University), have been communicating via email.  Lorelai complains that Rory has been writing really brief emails and hasn't been including enough information:

 

She says,

"You're not even using verbs.  That's not a relationship.  Relationships need verbs."

 

Relationships need verbs.

 

As Newton Faulkner sang,

 

         "Love, love is a verb

         Love is a doing word."

 

 

Love should be something active.  Love is more than just words. 

 

It is easy to tell someone you love them, so much harder to show them.  Loving someone in actions takes effort.  It requires time and energy and compromise.  It is so much easier to simply say you love someone.

 

But God didn't just say He loved us.  He showed us His love.  He sent His Son to die for us to show us His love.  The cross is a display of His powerful, passionate love.

 

John urges this in his first letter:

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

 

[1 John 3:18 NIV]

 

It's easy to say you love someone.  But love is a verb.

 

Disappointment And Delight

Life is full of disappointments.

 

Oranges with more pips than flesh.  Trains being delayed.  Computers crashing and losing your work.  Rain after you have straightened your hair.  Photocopiers jamming when you're in a rush.

 

And it's not just things that can disappoint us.  People can too. 

 

We can feel let down by other people and by God.  They let us down, or they don't pull through for us.

 

But the worst feeling of disappointment is disappointment in ourselves.  We feel that we haven't just let ourselves down, but have let other people down, too.  It's like we have to feel the disappointment twice.

 

I've just been enjoying another dose of The Gilmore Girls. Rory doesn't get an internship that she was really hoping for and, as well as being disappointed herself, she feels that she has disappointed everyone else too.  And that feeling is worse than just being disappointed in herself.

 

Similarly, we can feel that we have disappointed other people too.  Or, even worse, we can feel like God is disappointed in us.

 

Yesterday, I wrote about how God's love for us depends on what He is like and what He does, not what we are like or what we do.

 

But it goes further than that.  God doesn't just tolerate us because that's His nature.  He loves us and delights in us.

 

        "For the Lord your God is living among you.
        He is a mighty saviour.
        He will take delight in you with gladness.
        With his love, he will calm all your fears.
        He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

 

        [Zephaniah 3:17 NLT]

 

 

When she doesn't get the internship, Rory's mum comforts her, saying,

"You could never be a disappointment to me. Ever. Never ever. Never ever ever."

 

And God says the same to us. 

 

Delight.  Not disappointment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Life Hurts

As R.E.M sang, "Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes."

We live in an imperfect world with imperfect people who make imperfect choices.  And the result is that we get hurt.

Pain, in this life, is unavoidable.

Pain is a sign that there is something wrong: it points to the fact that things are not as they should be.  Pain prompts us to put things right.

It shouldn't be ignored.

As Taylor says in Gilmore Girls,

"Pain is your body's way of saying 'I'm not alright now, but I will be soon.  You've got to listen to your body.  You don't want to shut it up too soon ... that's called death.'"

We can ignore pain, we can dull the ache with pills and medicines, we can distract ourselves and bury the hurt.  But it never really goes away.

In order to heal, we need to let the wounds breathe.  We need to bring them out into the open and bring them before God.

"If your heart is broken,
You'll find God right there;
if you're kicked in the gut,
He'll help you catch your breath."

[Psalm 34:18 MSG]

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

[Psalm 147:3 NIV]

These are some of the words from 'The Hurt and The Healer" by MercyMe (full lyrics at
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mercyme/thehurtthehealer.html) 

"You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I’ve fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide."

Whilst being hurt may be unavoidable, staying hurt isn't.