Does your faith look like this?
Sometimes, my faith looks like this.
Broken. Right in the middle. Torn between belief and unbelief.
I try to mend it. Like all things that break, I hand it to my daddy who uses his super glue to hold it back together.
It was given to me as a gift from a dear friend after I lost Roi. A sweet toddler girl picked it up one day, and crack. When I found it later broken in half, I was initially sad. Yet it looked hopeful to glue back together, so it didn’t bother me too much.
But with this fickle, fragile, and weak piece of wood…the glue didn’t stick. So I stopped trying. Instead, it sits in two pieces, side-by-side, on my kitchen window sill.
As I am washing dishes recently, it annoys me. It looks pathetic up there, with my memory verse cards and our cacti from Arizona. The brokenness is obvious. It stares back at me, crying out, “Will you fix me?!”
It then occurs to me that this is how I often feel: broken and shouting, “Will someone please fix me?!” Why can’t I have more faith? Why do I still worry? Why can’t I get it through my dense head to trust the Lord and believe in all His promises?
I turn the hot water off and ring out the dish cloth. A text conversation pops into my mind that I had with Kayla moments before I left for the hospital to deliver Seth. It’s found in chapter one of my book, Living Hope:
Kayla: Be gentle with yourself. It's OK to hurt. It's OK to not be OK right now.
Me: I'm scared that I'm going to go downward though.
Kayla: What do you have to hold right now? A truth about God, a verse? Is there something really clear and short you can anchor on?
Me: "I believe. Help me with my unbelief!" That's pretty much all I got right now.
“I believe. Help me with my unbelief.” It’s a prayer I held onto after Seth died, and I have offered it up to the Lord too many times to count. It’s from Mark 9:14-29, when a father comes to Jesus asking him to drive a demon out of his son.
“…If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
And Jesus said to him, “If You can! All things are possible for the one who believes.”
Immediately the father of the boy cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief.” (ESV)
How many times have we thought that we have to believe before coming to Jesus? We are hesitant to ask because we doubt that our faith is strong enough. Our shame of not fully trusting keeps us hiding from Jesus, rather than drawing closer. This father understood that he didn’t have to have it all together. His faith seemed uncertain, split down the middle. He believed his son was broken, and he wanted to believe that this Jesus was the only one who could put him back together again.
So he was honest with Jesus, and he has been my example of being honest before Jesus too. “Lord, I believe. But I’m really struggling here. You really need to help me with my unbelief. I cannot do this without you. I’m weak, I’m broken. I need you to carry me through this when I don’t have anything left to give.”
And you know what that actually is called…
Faith.
My act of coming to Jesus with my unbelief…turns into belief. I believe that He will take care of the parts where I’m lacking to trust. He would rather I come to Him with my unbelief than try to put myself back together over and over again. Because every time I try that, the glue I’m using doesn’t stick. I’m split in the middle, crying out, “Someone please fix me!”
The only way to be fully mended is to hand my belief and my unbelief over to my Abba, Daddy, to use something more powerful than the super glue I’m using: His faithful love and grace. It’s unending. It’s powerful. It’s sustaining. It’s enough.
The two pieces sitting on my kitchen window sill are a daily reminder to desperately come to Jesus first with my belief and unbelief.
Now, my faith looks beautiful, not broken.
P.S. If you have read my book on grief, you know that the Spirit speaks to me through music. This is a beautiful song bringing belief and unbelief to the Lord.