A Step of Faith

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking over this concept of faith-- what it is and what it means.  Our church finished a series in February about decisions and the power of both making decisions and the importance of making pre-decisions.  It has flowed seamlessly into the month of March's series "Fence the Family," which is focused on keeping out what doesn't belong inside, of setting healthy boundaries and maintaining those boundaries.

Our pastor would be the first to admit that these are not the goose bump-inducing, feel-good messages.  They are direct, often hitting close to home.  As he pointed out last week during Spring Cleaning,  we have to continually assess our lives, constantly clean out the things that snuck in and are building up.  We never "arrive."

And all of this to say, I have been thinking about that moment when we realize that, yet again, we are struggling with this same problem.  When our life gets "bumped," as Jeanne Mayo said at a retreat I was at this weekend, and yet again things come out of us that we didn't realize were in there.  It's frustrating and can be so discouraging to feel like we're back at square one. 

In those moments when I am painfully aware of all of my short comings, my stumbling blocks, and what I've allowed to creep up in my life again, I have a decision to make.  I can hide, curl up in a ball of hurt and wallow in self-loathing.  Or I can go to God with it.

I had the incredible privilege of sitting in on a session that Jeanne led that was focused on supporting people through failure.  She said that often people going through failure will avoid you.  There is shame and even at times a reluctance or refusal to admit wrong.  We hide, much like Adam and Eve when they ate forbidden fruit and hid. 

But when we hide, when we wallow in our own depravity, it's even more of a slap in the face to God.  Because in those moments we are making our sin, in all of its awfulness, bigger than God.  Because the sin that kept us from God is still further keeping us from God.  We use it as a shield, attempting to hide from truth and as a wall to push away the very grace we need in that moment.  Because we think our human feelings mean more than the unfathomable love, grace, and mercy that are the core of who He is and are the very things He most longs to give us in those moments.

A few weeks ago, one of my preschoolers got in trouble during class.  For the sake of privacy, I'm going to call her Faith.  This beautiful, sweet girl is so kind and loving.  But there was a misunderstanding with some instructions from another leader, and she accidentally disobeyed.  When she realized she had done something wrong, she was devastated.  She was so upset, she literally sat in the hallway outside of the room and curled herself into as small of a ball as she could manage and wept and wept.

When I went to talk to her and to try to figure out exactly what had happened, it took quite some time to get her to look at me or to really hear anything that I was saying.  My heart broke, because she had so much shame.  She was so broken over her mistake that she struggled for a long time to accept even a hug or a kind word as I attempted to calm her down.  Faith continued to tell me how bad she was and that she just wanted to go home.  I know this girl, and I know her ways.  She is none of the things she thought she was.

And in these last few days, God has been showing me that when I'm curled up and overwhelmed with my mistake, He's standing right there.  He wants to pick me up, correct, and restore me in LOVE.  In grace.  In His mercy.  And in that moment I have a choice to make.  I can continue to wallow in all that I think and feel, all that the world would see me as... or I can make another choice.

In making that other choice, I choose to make the simplest and yet one of the hardest steps of faith.  Our pastor often reminds us that "God loves you, and there is nothing you can do about it."  We can't out-sin His love.  Hebrews 11:1 is the infamous faith chapter, and it reminds us "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  The first step of faith anyone can make and the one we must continue to make is that step to turn to Him in our failure.  To turn toward the grace.

I have not yet read the book, but as Beth Moore so eloquently summed up in So Long Insecurity, "God knows exactly what happened and what a toll it took, He knows the number it played on your mind. Let Him bring you peace. Let Him tell you you’re worth wanting, loving, even liking, pursuing, fighting for, and, yes, beloved, keeping. Whatever you do, don’t reject the only One wholly incapable of rejecting you.”  Take that first single step of faith, and He will be faithful to take the rest of those steps to meet you where you are, at the depth of failure, and allow Him to lift you back up to restoration.