Faith In The Present Tense: A Perpetual Struggle

Faith is difficult in the present tense.

I find it much more palatable in the past tense, with outcomes decided and the benefit of retrospect, once the goodness of God has shaken out into something visible and tangible.  Ah, we say, that was a difficult time, but faith in God brought us through and look what happened!

There was a verse that haunted me when my mother lay dying of cancer.  Psalm 27:13: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  And yes, my mother had seen it in the days before she couldn’t eat or do anything other than be in pain.  And I would see it after she died, after the initial rush of grief faded, when I could understand beauty and joy again.  But in the moment of her dying, that verse felt like a punch in the stomach.  To believe in seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living required eyes I only barely had.

And so, now.

It’s a strange thing how quickly circumstances can turn.  Over the past two or three years I’ve experienced a really blessed time of growth and joy in my career.  I’ve met remarkable, wonderful people.  I’ve had fantastic experiences.  God has placed me in the astonishing favor of many, granted me wisdom and words in situations where I desperately needed both, and I have grown, and grown, and grown.  There have been struggles and difficulty, but having this experience—after an experience in my career marked by cruelty, contempt, and hateful people—has been nothing less than a gift from God.

I’ve found the place, I’ve thought frequently, where you’ve meant me to serve.

But now, everything is upside-down.  A sudden vacancy in a position means everything is up for grabs: the most awful of the hateful, horrible people I know from that earlier part of my career has an opportunity to come into a significant amount of authority over all of us.  Certain powerful people want him in the role and seem prepared to disregard everyone and everything to ensure that he gets it; I and a colleague are the only two people who have an opportunity who might be able to turn the tide.

I look at a man who made me miserable for years, who was the definition of unrighteousness, and who might be granted power over me again, and it’s hard not to fall into despair.

My colleague and I don’t have a lot of power or authority beyond a significant amount of soft capital we’ve amassed.  We’re trusted, well-liked, and respected, but we don’t have hiring and firing authority at the executive level.  We have a chance to speak our minds, and to hope our words land, and that’s all.  We both feel a lot of pressure not to say what is true; we’ve both committed to say it.  We’re both afraid of being honest and vulnerable; we know honesty obligates us to be.

It’s a horrible feeling, to be so vulnerable.

It’s a horrible feeling, to set out to do the right thing and wonder if it will even matter.

It’s a horrible feeling, the sense that unrighteous is going to roll on unrepentant, always rewarded, perpetually crushing good and decent people beneath.

It’s a horrible feeling, to know your colleagues are putting what hope they have in you.

I tell myself that the outcome hasn’t been decided.  I remind myself that, as this situation has grown worse and worse, with options thin, that this is exactly the situation God likes to glorify Himself in.  My colleague is Muslim and I do my best to maintain a spirit of hope and faith around her. Some of my other colleagues are atheists; when I tell them I am praying about this, they look at me with a combination of skepticism and wonder.

I want God to reveal Himself.  I want God to glorify Himself.  But faith is so hard in the present tense.

Scripture tells us to knock down the doors of heaven—believe, seek, ask, knock.  Be persistent.  God will give bread, not stones.  We will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I believe this in the long run: that one day I will, that over time I shall, that over the course of time and tide God will have turned out to be good and loving and gentle.

But in the present tense, what am I allowed to hope for?  How much faith do I allow myself, and for what?

Sometimes, I still stumble praying over the sick.  I ask God to heal them, and I wonder what I mean.  Do I mean that death and going to the Lord are a certain sort of healing, so it all counts even if they’re not physically healed?  Do I mean to ask for a full, specific, physical healing?  Am I supposed to be the petitioner who boldly, trusting God’s provision and His grace, asks for One Specific Thing and waits in hopeful expectation it will be granted?  Or am I the petitioner who takes the long view, knowing that my will isn’t always God’s, and that One Specific Thing is probably too limiting for what God has in mind?  Can you be both?

What I want to do: to tell my Muslim friends and my atheist friends and all the believing friends who are praying for me that God is going to reveal Himself in this situation—that He will glorify Himself mightily to intervene because has He not, after all carried us here?  And has He not, like Esther, placed us in a place to intervene at a moment of great need?

What I also want to do: not tell anyone anything, because I know that God works good in a lot of things, and sometimes not in the present tense, and “good” might not look like working something mighty or preventing a horrible situation, but may be something else entirely in the end.

What I actually do: pray, a lot.  Ask friends to pray.  Gear myself up for next week, when I will look up and very literally speak truth to power.  Note the signs of despair and resignation and rally myself against them.  Try to cultivate hope.  Ask for forgiveness when my hope fails.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

This is life in the present tense.