Faith, Hope and Belief . . . Connecting Keywords of Life

Caroline Grace Schuler . . . .now the Bible College student.

A Pilgrim’s Faith Journey

(This post takes about 3 minutes to read)

One of the great criticisms of theology is that it vigorously presents compelling answers—or so thinks the theologian—to questions no one is asking. Now it’s true . . . sometimes Bible teachers, pastors (and yes, theologians!) need to upend our lazy thinking. But, how many of you know what perichoresis means . . . or its impact on your faith journey? Forgive my contrarianism, but that was the topic for my daughter’s recent Bible College paper. “Dad, it’s important to know more about the mystery of the Trinity,” said Caroline recently, “But thank the Lord, I graduate in May!”

Seriously though, there are words and phrases that are vital to our spiritual vocabulary and walk with God. These include faith . . . belief . . . hope in . . . hope for . . . and faithful. How you define and knit these words together and apply them in your life speaks volumes about the robustness of your spiritual health.

For example, I am no English grammar scholar, but even I know that faith is a noun (like the word rock) and to believe is a verb indicating an action taken. To go further, I also know that who or what I hope in—for me, a Sovereign God and the reality of the Risen Christ—establishes the peace in what I hope for. What I hope in, that is, the object of my hope, dictates what I believe and therefore determines how hope manifests itself in my daily life. With belief, I can be faith-ful in my walk with God . . . and learn to “Be still,” (Psalm 46:10).

Confused? Hang in there, this is how those words played out in my life experience.

When my precious daughter, Vanessa, lay in ICU, dangerously close to death in 1992, I was hoping for (and praying for) her recovery. When she breathed her last, I was utterly crushed because what I hoped for was not grounded whatsoever in who or what I hoped in. My weak foundation of faith catapulted me into a severe state of depression, and it took me over two years to regain my spiritual footing. But it was all in God’s perfect timing, because in February of 1995, my newborn daughter, Caroline was thrust into ICU at birth. She faced daunting odds of survival; the neonatal team gave her a 25% chance of making it out. But from my side, the rules of the ICU drama had radically changed. How?

My spiritual inventory had been completely re-shuffled. Now, what I hoped in became immeasurably more powerful than what I hoped for, because I came to understand that God is greater than my circumstances, greater than any disappointment or tragedy . . . and even greater than the odds of a skilled medical team. You could say it this way, “My faith in God had grown until I was faithful—that is, not easily uprooted by the buffeting winds of life. I came to believe that the object of my faith was worthy of my trust . . . and his purposes for me on this conflicted planet did not necessarily include my “happiness,” but more so, perseverance in my circumstances and faithfulness in my relationship with him.

A vision of Bunyan’s Celestial City

This reminds me of the character “Pliable” in John Bunyan’s allegorical classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress. (Ha! You should pull it off your bookshelf every twenty years like I recently did.) When Pliable fell into the muck and mire of the Swamp of Despond on his way to God’s Celestial City with his companion, Christian, he railed in anger. “Is this the happiness you’ve been telling me about?” Immediately upon extracting himself, Pliable (don’t miss the allegorical significance of his name) turned back to the faithless town he came from, where happiness was life’s pursuit, not a relationship with a Sovereign God. The object of Pliable’s hope—happiness—put him on the wrong pathway in life.

As we battle the demons of COVID-19 and all the unknowns that it presents, this is a great time to survey and reconstitute your spiritual health. Who or what do you hope in? Will what you believe sustain you in these times and under-gird your faith? Will you be faithful like Christian on his journey to the Celestial City . . . or faithless like Pliable’s fear of the unknown.

There’s no need to practice social distancing with God. He is near to all who persevere in faith.

Tom

“For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” (Colossians 1:13-14).

Note: The story of Caroline’s miraculous delivery from the neonatal ICU ward is told in-full in Metamorphyx: Embracing Life Experience, Life Change, and Life Purpose. You can find Metamorphyx on Amazon, B&N, or Apple iTunes..