The Faith Essays, Part I

"He who knows no hardship will know no hardihood

He who faces no calamity will need no courage

Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature

which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles"

~Harry Emerson Fosdick

When I first read this quote, the part I italicized lingered in my mind. The whole quote is fantastic, actually. "hardihood"... what a great word?! "need no courage"... what a great way to phrase that?! It is mysterious how the characteristics we admire most are ones that are birthed by virtuously overcoming hardships.

Last night, I went to go see Rob Bell. Now, I never jumped on the Rob-Bell-bandwagon, as you know, I'm not much for trends. People who define themselves by the things they have, the clothes they wear, or the books they read annoy me. I must admit that this has caused me to write off plenty of things that in-and-of-themselves might be perfectly sound (i.e. Twilight). After about the second Nooma video I watched, I had decided I didn't like the fad that was Rob Bell. I saw the videos as nothing more than a good tool to manipulate youth into paying attention.... and weak sauce. It aggravated me to see such an influx of college age Christians be drawn to take every word he said as gospel.... when, ironically, his words weren't even literal gospel. In my pride (and well aware of it), I wrote off his books and his sermons.

But, then, there was last night. Husband has actually read the books and listened to his sermons. Husband has a more legitimate perspective of Bell. He loves him. I couldn't care less. Husband asked me to go with him to hear Bell speak. So, I went. More interested in the conversations we might have afterward (I may or may not have been anticipating having all these thoughts contrary to his weak-sauced-display-of-coolness). I brought my notebook, half-expecting God to humble me, cause Him and I have gotten into a nice rhythm of this and half-expecting to write notes to blog about. (big cheesy grin).  Lo and behold, our God is faithful. He did delivered both! A nice refreshing message that totally spoke to this chapter of my life, and a pen that wasn't out of ink so I could document all my thoughts on his thoughts (Bell's not God's).

I believe Bell was trying to address the age old question of "Why is there suffering?"... He submitted that we change the question to "What now?" He started out with the parable of the prodigal son. He pointed out the other brother and how the brother seemed upset that the dad was throwing this big party in honor of the return of the prodigal brother. I think he was trying to use this story to show how we generally think things are "suppose to be" a certain way and when things don't go that way, this is where pain and suffering come to be. From here he went to talking about thinking outside the box and what a dumb term that is, because whatever is outside the box is still partly being defined by what is in the box (this was one of my favorite points). He basically was saying that the "faithful" brother didn't need to "think outside the box", he needed to see the box more clearly. He needed to understand what exactly made him think "this isn't the way it should be". He needed to figure out what the walls, per se, of the box were...

Okay, I could go on and on and tell you about the entire message. And perhaps I will over time. But, right now, I want to take the chance to put Faith on display.

Faith. A peculiar thing. It is only when things are not as they "should be" that Faith becomes a possibility... right? I mean, think about it. Like "he who faces no calamity will need no courage"... I submit that he who faces no doubt will need no Faith.