What is Faith?

While at work tonight, a co-worker started asking me about faith. Ben knows that I am a follower of Christ and that I serve at my local church community. He didn't really want to know about Christianity. He wanted to know about faith. Ben is in the middle of a self-described "crisis of faith." He explained that he believes in God. But not because he feels God, but because he feels like he is supposed to believe in God. He explained that he grew up in a Christian family. In fact his mother had been a minister at one point. The unmentioned expectations that he grew up with had to be impacting him. Ben is a logical person. Which is often an obstacle to faith. God is not something that can be explained or even fully understood. If that was the case then what kind of God would He be? I don't want a God that fits into a nice little box. Ben explained that in his logic, he cannot justify how a loving, gracious, merciful God could, if we chose not to follow him, banish us from his presence to an eternal Hell. Then he went on to explain that he struggles with the concept of a "relationship with God." To Ben, God is not a person. He is a being, or a force, or something bigger, unexplainable. To Ben, God is more heavenly and less earthly. So it is difficult for him to wrap his logical brain around the idea of having a relationship with God. I explained to him that I think that phrase: "a relationship with God" is a cheesy cliche that some Christian thought up to oversimplify what it means to follow Christ and live in God's grace. I think that phrase is used when it is more difficult to say what we really mean. To have a relationship with God is like having a relationship with anyone. You talk, you listen, you spend time together, you learn about each other, you cry together, you laugh together. Pretty hard to do with a concept, isn't it? But God isn't a concept. I feel for Ben, because I have been where he is. That dark moment of the soul when you realize that at that point you could take one of two paths. One path leads to life in God. Living Kingdom Life, loving God and loving people. The other path leads to self-gratification, self fulfillment, and eventually self loathing. Because we hate to be alone. We were never meant to be alone. God created us to be relational creatures. This was rough, because I didn't have any real answers for him. But then again, when I was in that place, I didn't want answers I just wanted someone to listen, to give validity to my doubts and struggles. I told Ben that we could pick up this conversation on our next shift together. I pray that God gives me the words to comfort Ben and steer him to the path towards God.

|