Repost: Faith is a Story

We’re a society that likes to measure things – cancer cells, presidential approval ratings, UV rays and income levels to name a few. But many things – the most important ones I’d say – can’t be reduced to paper.

Even our churches follow the trend. It's understandable. They want data like the rest of the world. So they put a statement of faith on their website. And they ask for a confession before they baptize a convert. But faith, what faith really is, won't show up in a sentence or a paragraph, not even on a page.

Faith might be belief in Jesus Christ, an antidote to sin or a ticket to Heaven. But that would be a thin definition. It is something much, much larger and better.

Faith is a story. It begins with God making a beautiful garden and Eve taking the first bite out of forbidden fruit. It continues with her children, sons and daughters who become warriors and fiery-eyed prophets, prostitutes and mothers, kings and poets, saints and sinners. Her children start wars, break idols, become enslaved and with God’s help, break free again. They commit heinous sins, repent and find God’s mercy. They beg their townspeople to listen to God’s wisdom, or they turn their back on Him completely.

It is a story where God reveals himself in Eve’s finest Son. Born in a stable alongside the smell of manure and wet donkey fur, he goes on to bring hope to the broken, the sinful and the hungry. It looks like the story ends as he dies a bloody death at the hands of Roman torture. But instead, he returns with life and a new kind of hope.

No, faith can’t be reduced to a formula. It can’t even be reduced to believing in a story. Faith only happens when you join the story.

Maybe you join the story when you first sing a Sunday school song with hand motions. Possibly when you look through a telescope and realize you’re seeing a star that died before Copernicus was born. Or maybe only when you realize you’ve wrecked your life and reach out with desperate relief to the God who is infinite enough to make sense of your mess.

You continue the story as you mow the lawn for your elderly neighbor and when you turn away from an argument when your son calls you ugly names, when you spend the afternoon reading through the Book of Luke, and when you take time to talk to the guy panhandling in front of the store.

The story is still getting written when you look into the sunset, hoping God is still there, even though it feels like you're on your own. And when you decide you won’t pray anymore because God clearly isn’t going to answer your prayers. Only you find yourself praying anyway, this time with a raised fist and words you know you shouldn’t say to the Almighty. The story isn’t done when, dry-eyed and with a heart gone numb, you face a sin you thought you were too big to commit. Words have abandoned you, and yet you search for the strength to ask for forgiveness.

You’re still living out your faith story when, with a blessing, you welcome your baby granddaughter into the world, wet and pink and screaming. And when your mother takes her last breath with you looking up to see if you can sense her spirit leaving with the angels.

Faith is a life. Try putting faith into a formula. Try putting it on paper. Try reducing it to evidence. But it can’t be done. All you can do is live it out