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In Faith

Even When...

I was driving home from school a few weeks ago stressed, overwhelmed, and disappointed. I thought about all the ways I fail my savior. I thought about my shame that only grows as I get more involved in ministries and my local church. I thought about the cracks in my vessel that I keep hidden.

In the midst of this overwhelming, gut-wrenching, self-consumed, pity, this song came on my radio:

Even when the fight seems lost

I'll praise You

Even when it hurts like hell


Even when it makes no sense to sing

Louder then I'll sing Your praise

How accurate a depiction of how this life is.

Lately, I have come face to face with overwhelming doubt that a God, whom I cannot see, created this universe and everything in it. When the ones He formed in His image failed Him, he pursued them (us) through the short-comings and sought a way to reunite us to Him again. In doing so, He sent his son, in the form of a lowly son of man to reconcile us and redeem us of our sins.

Biology teachers use this as the bud of jokes. They shake their heads at us foolish "believers" who are so gulible that we believe something we have read with no scientific backing. They say we are crazy, bigoted, and unintelligent.

Religion teachers see the bible as a book, merely comparable to a Shakespear novel. They marvel at Psalmists' poetic and unprecedented techniques. Yet, they give no recognition to an unseen author.

Sometimes, I start to believe them.

My faith is crazy. It is counter-cultural. It does contrasts everything modern society would tell us is correct, trendy, and acceptable. My faith is not normal.

But neither was a savior who sacrificed His son to save a people that turned from him even as He hung on a cross; neither was a God who redeemed a people that rejected Him time after time; neither was a man who carried His only son to the top of a hill to be sacrificed on the alter, nor was a man who had a speech impediment and led a people out of slavery into the wilderness by parting a sea, and sending plagues; and neither was a boy who killed a giant with a pebble.

I serve a abnormal God; he is extraordinary, rejected by this world. He is unfathomable, unexplainable, and mysterious. Because His ways are not our ways.

I will choose to have faith, and not because it is easy, or accepted, or an emotion. I will choose to have faith not because it always makes sense. I will choose to have faith because I believe that He has saved me.

I will choose to be confident in what I hope for, and assured about things I cannot see.

Why? Because, I see Him work. I hear Him speak. I will choose to trust Him because His son lived and died. He pursues me in my short-comings and glorifies the lowly. He is able through my inability. He is strong in my weakness. He is graceful in my sin. He is good. He is a hope that breaks up darkness. He is my home that my heart cries out for in the quiet. He is the coverer of my shame and the light that shines through my cracks.

To question my redemption, to question who He is, to question my worth, is to question the death that gives me life, the power of the one that lives in me, the hand that molds me, the grace that calls me beloved. To question who He is, is to question my existence, and that I will not.

I exist to bring Him praise because of who He is and has been and will continue to be...

Even when it makes no sense to sing; louder than I'll sing your praise.

- 1 John 3:1

- Hebrews 11:1

- Mark 9:24

Gracin JohnsonApril 29, 2016Comment
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