Faith

What is is about being by myself that makes me so pensive?  I am housesitting for a week and have a big house to myself and a couple of dogs.  Without the distractions of other people, without a lot going on, I have of course been doing a lot of thinking.  I went to Sunday school this morning and the lesson really hit a chord with me.  I have been talking about the loaded issue of my own religious beliefs and today I have even more to think about.

I have been focusing on my faith.  Faith in God, faith in other people.  Today in Sunday school we talked about Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus chose his disciples not because they were the best of the best, not because they were already on a path of discipleship, not because they were the religious elite, but He chose them because they were the everyman.  Jesus chose his disciples because he had faith in them. He had faith that they could help tell his stories and carry on his Word.   He had believed that despite their mistakes, despite their less than starry reputations, despite their shortcomings, He could still depend on them to have faith in Him and to live worthy lives.  We brought up the story about Jesus walking on the water.  Jesus walked across the lake toward the boat and asked one of the disciples to walk across the water toward him, and he did…until he looked around and noticed the choppy water, the wind, the rough conditions and then the disciple began to sink and cried out to Jesus “Please save me!”  Jesus pulled him up.  So why did the disciple begin to sink?  Because he lost faith.  Not faith in Jesus, but he began to lose faith in himself.  He didn’t think he was capable of walking across the water under those difficult circumstances.  The lesson here was that Jesus had faith in his disciples. He never lost it.  God has faith in each of us.  He can never lose it.  We just need to trust in the  faith that has been bestowed on us and allow it to translate into faith in ourselves that we are capable of living worthy lives.

This struck me for two reasons.  First, I realized that I have lost a little bit of  faith in myself.  This last year since finishing my masters degree has been personally difficult to say the least.  I have been more down about everything than I have ever admitted out loud.  I have been frustrated and depressed and sad that things are not turning out the way I want them to and I can’t help but take that a little personally.  What am I doing wrong?  What do I need to have that I don’t?  Why can’t I just get a freakin job already?  I have been so focused on my crappy circumstances that I have lost sight of the fact that I need to believe that I can actually get out of them.  With literally hundreds of resumes/applications/cover letters sent out and with a huge handful of rejections, I sometimes have trouble believing that I can find a place where I will be happy.  I am the disciple sinking in the water, losing faith that I can walk across it.  I am looking around at the choppy water and crappy circumstances and wondering if it is actually possible to stand up and make it to my destination.  I need to find a way to regain that faith in myself and work up the gumption to make change happen.

The second reason that I connected with this message, and this is the bigger of the two, is the piece about God having faith in us.  Even when we are down, even when we fall, even when we don’t think we can operate under tough circumstances, God has faith in us that we can carry on.  Now I said it before, I am kind of struggling with my personal relationship with God.  Do I believe in God?  I think I want to.  But people have become a greater, more reachable aspect of my life that I have clung to, and I have lost sight of the fact that there are people in my life that have faith in me too.  People who will support me.  People who will listen to me and offer advice and pull for me wherever I end up.  I need to be reminded of that once in a while.  I wrote a while ago about about how I have developed this habit of isolating myself when I am feeling down.  But  it is these times when I am the most vulnerable when I need people the most.  I didn’t put much thought into exactly why that is.  Honestly, I need to surround myself with good people, good people who have faith in me.  People who can lift me up by believing that I am capable even when I don’t think that I am.

Faith is about more than following blindly.  Faith is about believing.  It is about being lifted up from within yourself and being lifted up by other people.  The Sunday school lesson today reminded me that no matter what I’m doing, or what I am struggling to believe, God has unwavering faith in me.  And so do the people that I have chosen to be a part of my life.