I read these words yesterday:

‘But I know sometimes faith can be a rope that hurts to hold. And I want to tell you, “Don’t let go.”’

I think that’s a song waiting to be written.  I should write it.  It’s a notion so often overlooked in modern Christianity – that faith, belief, walking with Jesus can be a very very very painful endeavor sometimes.  The Western church (and I’m making broad generalizations with a fat brush, here) seems to focus more upon the niceties.  ’Come join our fellowship and life will be peaches and gumdrops’.  That, or we revert to the opposite extreme – ‘Come be a Christian, and even though your life will still be rubbish, at least when you’re a corpse you’ll go to Heaven where eternal life will be peaches and gumdrops’.

There has to be a better explanation.  There must be a more truthful understanding of living faith than this:

“Join the club, say the prayer, come to church, read your Bible, good luck living life with a big ol’ target on your back from now on.  The world will hate you from now on.  Your professed belief will embarrass you, make you despicable to the intellectual, the world-wise, and the consumer.  All you’ll be taught about God and His Word will be mocked in western culture, marginalized or refused in middle-class culture, doubted in lower-class culture, or send you to prison in some second and third-world cultures.  You will be an outcast at your job, in your family, with your friends…  But hey, keep coming to church and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll meet someone else who can play Christian with you and make you feel a little better about the decision you’ve made to believe all this stuff the Noise says is foolish.”

Sometimes faith feels like way more trouble than it’s worth.

I’m pretty sure that we are all adult enough to admit that.  Those seasons of life when our declaration of dedication to God feels like we received a membership card to a private club, rather than an actual relationship with the King of Everything.  Those dark moments of loss and pain when we – internally, or with lifted voice – scream our heads off in God’s direction and beg to understand ‘Why?’.  Those crushing, maddening instants – when we see the homeless man who’s lost it all, including his mind.  When we see the elderly forgotten by her children and left to be alone and without the enveloping warmth of family.  When we encounter the drug addict who acts like your best friend only to curse your name the minute you realize you don’t have any cash on you.  When we fail our own families and receive no grace from them in return for our mistake.  When we see the reports of children enslaved, murdered, abused – and can’t fathom how our own clean hands might reach them… save them… give them something to hold on to.

And sometimes the faith we ourselves are holding on to seems so… inadequate.  We question if our own relationship with God is even worth sharing with those our hearts break for.  So we retreat – to the phone, to the internet, to the television, to the hobby.  Because it hurts too much to strengthen our grip.  It costs us our comfort.  It costs us our security.  It costs us literally everything.

And because it costs… it hurts.

King David in the book of 1 Chronicles tells a man named Ornan: “for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings with that which costs me nothing”.  The guy was trying to be nice, and offering his property to the King for free, out of respect and honor.  But David understood something that we in the relative comfort of the Western world often overlook – that gain without cost is empty.  We enter sweepstakes, we play the lottery, we dream of career paths that offer the most cash for the least effort.  But it never works like that.  For those few who have achieved the ‘American dream’ – they still strive to serve the god of More.  More comfort, more safety, more removal from the harsh realities of life.  Celebrities adopt impoverished children and take them from the painful and dangerous – they don’t move to where those children fight for their lives.  It would cost them too much to do so.  And because it costs – it hurts.

David refused to worship God, to commune with the Almighty in that place without giving up something else.  In that instance it was money.  When his infant son was dying, David put on sackcloth and ashes and gave up food and physical comfort in order to come before the Lord in prayer.  There is something life-giving, and solidifying about the pain of sacrifice.  I’ve heard pastors say, “Fake it ’til you feel it”.  That might sound disingenuous at first, but think about it…  Loving my wife without condition or any sort of stipulation or constant happy feeling – not always easy.  Not because my wife is hard to love (just the opposite, actually), but because she’s human.  And so am I.  Two humans, flawed and safety-seeking, living as one.  Sparks can fly, tensions can grow, and pain can sometimes make holding onto the covenant of marriage difficult.  But I choose her.  Daily.  Without fail.  I tell the pain that it’s just my human weakness leaving my wicked heart in increments.  I tell my comfort and happiness-seeking ways that they’re not worth more than my marriage.  I tell the discontent and discomfort to go die.  I pray when I don’t want to.  I pray for my wife when things are frustrating.  I pray and beg God to make me better than I am.  And then I go act like it.  By choice.  Because if I choose the easy way, if I choose to worship God and love my wife and live my life without effort, without pushing through the pain – then all my happiness and victory is empty.

And an amazing thing occurs – when I choose to hold on to my faith even when it’s painful – I begin to win.  When I choose to hold on and pray with my wife when I don’t want to – I begin to want to.  When I choose to hold on and praise God when I feel like a total fake in doing so – I begin to worship genuinely.  It’s amazing what merely holding on through the pain can do.  It can change the course of your rotten day, give actual hope and inspiration, or make you realize you were actually stronger than that circumstance told you that you were.

If your faith appears weak – attack life like it’s strong.

If your faith seems fake – live it out like it’s absolutely true.

If your faith feels dry – pray and sing and speak to God like the rain is incoming.

And as we hold on, through the pain, through the cost… we will lose only weakness and gain strength.  We will lose fear and gain hope.  We will lose hypocrisy and gain truth.

Choose to endure.  Fake it until you feel it.  Don’t let go.  The world needs your story to be told.

God is with you.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. - James 1:2-4

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