This Prayer...of Faith?

It Isn't What I Thought It Was

Have you ever prayed a prayer like this: 

Dear Father,

I come to you with this salutation — aware that I don’t really understand much of who you are or why I greet you in this particular way. There are more than a few times when it feels like you are more of an assembly of ideas, than anything else. And when that occurs, I feel aware that I need to pick something, as an access point to that conflation of ideas about what and who you are, God.  I wonder what that means about me and my ideas about you.

My tradition has made me feel that such ambiguity (about you) indicates this kind of honesty is a problem; because lack of clarity about you, God, must translate as an imperceivable faith (at the very least a lack of it).  Imperceivability about faith is a big no-no.  Faith should be obvious, overt, unwavering....

At least, we're talking though, God...aren't we? 

But, can we stop for a minute and consider what faith really is?

Obviously, this is no small task (maybe that's why we prefer quick and simple versions of faith definitions); the ages are full of people — faithful people, by the way — who have asked this question.

So, for one thing, I'm not alone...when I ask such a question from time to time.

And that, by the way, is a critical ingredient.  Faith is not a constant (nothing is); it ebbs and flows, like everything else in life.  Sometimes, I am full of faith...the crystal-clear kind.  At other times, I scrape around for even shreds of it.  What of the sublime is not like this?  Joy?  Kindness?  Mercy.  Even, love.  Everything is a full range of experience.  It has been said, "There is a time for everything..." — a time for things that are polar opposites of each other (or appear to be).

Faith is like a condition, a state of being.  Something is known; something that is unknown.  Held; and also illusive.  It involves trust, believing in something that doesn't always feel verifiable.  It has an object (or, if you prefer, a subject).  

When I believe something is true, I often believe because of how it is arranged; who arranges it.  Sometimes that is other people.  But, sometimes, other people let me down (like I do to them).  Sometimes it is my experience.  But, sometimes my experience is inadequate or the pain of my experience blinds me to it.  Sometimes, it is God.  But, sometimes, it feels like God lets me down (does God do that?).  Sometimes — because God is not defined by my experience or understanding of God.

But, because all of this is true or, even, just feels true, that doesn't mean I don't have faith. 

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for."  It is a condition of hoping, of wanting, of believing...even as my understanding of it, especially over the course of a lifetime, changes (grows).  There are many things I believe about God.  And, there are many things I don't even know about God.  Sometimes my belief enables me.  Sometimes it disables me.

Faith is a concept, a description of something.  But, my faith is always a personal version of that broader description.

Faith cannot be, in the end, simply certainty.  Not because of it, but because of me.

I am human.  Dependent.  Finite.  Needy.  I also am greedy, think too much of my capacity, independent.  I am both.  At times I feel secure in my faith; at other times, I feel lost.  But, the arc of my existence is that I have faith...that there is something bigger than my humanness that I can trust in — that it doesn't all depend on me, what I do, what I think...what I believe.  

God is faithful (worthy of faith) — creating fuller and fuller faith within me that helps me become more and more of who God has made me to be.

If that is true, then it is actually my faith that enables me to embrace what I don't know (especially about God) or understand, at any given moment, and to describe that to God (prayer).  What is not faith about that?  I am entrusting my unknowing about God…to God.  What else could represent faith, if not that?

The challenge here sometimes, it seems to me, really comes from laying my experience of this human engagement of faith against what others say it should look like.  My walking towards my uncertainty is really what faith is — trusting something to keep going, with hope in one hand and uncertainty (humanity) in the other.