A Faith Undone that Leads to a Faith that Lasts

To say it’s been a fight for faith is an understatement. Not because this has been the most painful season of my life, but because of the longevity, depth, and layers of hardship that have worn me to a pulp. I’ve had seasons when my agony has driven me to worship as Job did:

“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

But there have also been seasons like this one. One where my heart cries out,

I am the man (or woman) who has seen affliction
    under the rod of his wrath;
he has driven and brought me
    into darkness without any light;
surely against me he turns his hand
    again and again the whole day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
    he has broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me
    with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me dwell in darkness
    like the dead of long ago.

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
    he has made my chains heavy;
though I call and cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer;
he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
    he has made my paths crooked.

…he has made me desolate;
he bent his bow and set me
  as a target for his arrow.

He drove into my kidneys
    the arrows of his quiver…
He has filled me with bitterness;
    he has sated me with wormwood.

He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
    and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished;
    so has my hope from the Lord.”

Lamentations 3:12-19

Whether we realize it or not, we’re in a constant battle between the temporal and eternal. We may say that eternity is where our hope is set (and it very well might be), but we still live in these temporal bodies, with daily needs, desires, longings, and pains that are constantly smacking us in the face with immediate realities, testing our faith around every corner. Little by little, we may painfully realize that our faith has been riddled with self-made expectations. The expectation of what makes sense to us. The expectation that we know how God’s goodness, faithfulness, and grace should play out in our lives.

And when our expectations are shattered, or worse, God seems to be the one with a target on our back, it leaves us questioning, disoriented, and maybe even angry. In our eyes, the God we thought we knew has failed us. In reality, our perception of God is what’s failed us.

So we’re faced with a choice. Stay in this place of accusation, doubts, bitterness, etc, or else ask God to build in us a faith that’s based on what’s true versus our own curated version of it. Because it’s here that we truly learn that faith “is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).” The place where nothing makes sense to us is the very place where true, deeply rooted faith is born. 

Friend, if you find yourself in a similar season, I encourage you to consider that, instead of seeing this as your faith being undone, consider that it may be the deepest, most personal work of God building a true, fortified faith that won’t be easily shaken. Because THAT is what true faith is built upon. 

In his grace and compassion toward our frame, may God lift our eyes once again and direct our weary hearts to claim this with confident hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:22-26).

Home is around the corner,

Sarah