The man of faith who has not experienced doubt is not a man of faith – Thomas Merton
Simon’s life was ruined.
He had seen it coming for a while. When he first met the Rabbi, along the banks of the Jordan, Jesus had, quite presumptively Simon thought, changed his name to Peter (John 1:42). Thereafter, Jesus had taken up residence in ‘Simon Peter’s’ neighborhood. Simon saw him every day: beside the Sea of Galilee, in the synagogue on the Sabbath, in line at Starbucks. They had even become friendly with one another. It was interesting to listen to the Rabbi speak. Simon even had him over for supper one day. That’s when things got hinky. Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, who was suffering from fever, and then went on to heal half the town. He went away for a while after that, but Simon knew it in his bones: the Rabbi would be back – for him.
And now it had happened. Jesus had insisted that Simon and his partners take the boats out again after a long and hopeless night of fishing. It was fruitless according to all logic, but even then, Simon could sense it: the Rabbi was up to something. Simon yielded with minimal residence. And sure enough, the Rabbi had been up to something. The catch was so great it nearly swamped the boats. They barely got them back to shore.
That’s when Simon knew: his life was ruined.
The Rabbi had power. There was no denying it. He came from God. His brother Andrew might even be right. Jesus might be the Messiah. And what is one to do when the Messiah takes an interest in you? When he performs miracles for you? You follow him, at least if he will have you. And Simon knew: Jesus would have him. What would happen to his fishing business? Who would take care of his boats? What might he have to do? Where might he have to go? Who might he have to go with? And, worst of all, how would he explain it to his wife?
Yup. Ruined.
And so, before Jesus said a word, Simon blurted out, ‘Go away Jesus! I’m not good enough to be around you!’
I remember the first time I presented the story of Simon Peter’s call in this fashion (you can read the official version in Luke 5:1-11). I was a seminary intern with no idea of the firestorm I would ignite. An elder saint of the church became incensed. ‘What do you mean Simon thought his life was ruined?’ ‘It was an honor to follow Jesus!’ ‘He left his nets and tackle on the shoreline and went gladly!’ ‘Why are you denigrating such a hero of the faith?’ When I pointed out that Simon really had told Jesus to go away, that this was in the Bible, he insisted that Simon had only said so because of the sudden awareness of his sinfulness, not at all out of concern for what might happen to his life should he follow Jesus. ‘I’m sure he was aware of his own sinfulness,’ I offered, ‘but still, wouldn’t you be at least a little concerned if you were in his shoes? I mean, to have your whole life upended on a dime? It would only have been natural for Simon to have felt some trepidation at the moment of his call. What sane person wouldn’t?
To this I was told that if I had stood before Jesus as Simon had, hearing his very voice and looking into his very eyes, I wouldn’t have had any doubts at all. Or at least, he suggested, with an evolving suspicion of the new seminary intern’s trust in God, I shouldn’t. ‘When Jesus calls,’ the elder said, ‘people with faith go. It’s just that simple.’
I never convinced him otherwise, and I’m fairly sure I lost the room that day, but let me assure you, faith is most certainly not that simple.
Scripture certainly doesn’t present faith as such. Faith, as described in the pages of the Bible, is a real life, flesh and blood struggle with God. ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen,’ is the famous definition taken from the Book of Hebrews. It is a true and beautiful definition. But faith is also Abraham, struggling step by step as he makes his way to the Canaan, questioning whether he’d made the right move, wondering what terrors might await on the other side of the next hill, making mistake after mistake once he gets there because he can’t quite bring himself to fully believe all the promises of God, agonizing as he lays his son Isaac on the altar, puzzling over a God who would ask him to do such a thing.
Faith is Moses, called by God to leave his quiet life as a shepherd in Midian, assessing all he will have to give up, considering the risks of going back to Egypt, wondering how he will explain to Zipporah that they have to go because God spoke to him from a burning bush (how do you think that conversation went?), offering God every excuse his stammering tongue could manage as to why God should send someone else.
Faith is Jeremiah, quaking in his sandals at the thought of having to speak the truth to recalcitrant kings, first arguing with God that he’s too young for the job, and then, later, when things turned out just as God said they would, complaining that Yahweh had pulled a fast one on him.
Faith is Simon Peter, trying to shake Jesus on the shores of the Galilee, arguing later on that a Messiah has no business going up to Jerusalem to die, falling asleep in Gethsemane, denying – three times – that he even knows Jesus.
Faith is Jesus himself, sweating drops of blood in the garden, asking his Father to take the cup from him, crying in doubt, yes, doubt, from the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Faith is all of this. Faith is what happens when a person struggles through the reality of what it means to follow a God who never reveals the end at the beginning, middle, or even five minutes before the end of the story, and then, ultimately, follows anyway, believing that, despite their doubts, God is worth following. Faith is what happens when a person, shaking in their soul, says, ‘Okay God, you’re asking an awful lot of me, and I don’t understand what on earth you could possibly be up to, but in the final analysis, where else can I go but you? Here I am, send me. Your will be done.’
Frederick Buechner put it this way: ‘Faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going but going anyway. A journey without maps. [Paul] Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.’[1]
I write this today because, in my own present journey, I, and others I care deeply about, are being asked by God to take a journey. It doesn’t really matter what the journey is, reader. Suffice it to say it may not be all that dissimilar to your own. It’s just one that requires a lot from us. It requires us to risk much, to surrender much, to trust much. And we are willing. Yet willingness does not negate struggle. It does not negate doubt. Struggle and doubt are part and parcel of our willingness. They are, as Buechner and Tillich said, part and parcel of our faith. They are part and parcel of what it means to be human.
And, if the stories of the Bible are any indication, and they are, God is okay with that. He is patient and kind. Of course he is, for in Jesus, he knows the struggle well.
One of the best pictures of faith, in my estimation, is found in the 32nd chapter of Genesis. There we read of a conniving finagler named Jacob who wrestled with his faith as he sat by the shore of a river facing an uncertain future. Long before, he had been given all the promises God had made to his grandfather Abraham, but circumstances were such that he had come to doubt them. And there, along the shores of the Jabbok, God met Jacob in his doubts, and allowed Jacob to wrestle, both with him and them. At one point in the match, Jacob cried out to God, ‘I will not let you go until you bless me!’ And lo and behold, God blessed him on the spot. He even changed Jacob’s name to Israel, a name which means, alternatively, or perhaps at the same time, ‘God fights,’ or ‘struggles with God.’
That’s what faith is, a wrestling with God. It’s the struggle of a human being who wants to know God but doesn’t quite understand him. The struggle of a human being who, despite their doubts, holds on to God and doesn’t let go. The struggle that is blessed by God.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let anyone question your right, as a person of faith, to doubt, to ask questions along the course of your journey, to give voice to how you feel in those moments when the mountains loom large, and your faith seems small. Your struggle isn’t evidence that you don’t have faith. It is the evidence that you do.
Because faith is struggle.
Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent
[1] Wishful Thinking: a Seeker’s ABC, s.v. ‘Faith.’