The picture below is what sparked my thoughts on this matter. That and that fact that I have been challenged more than ever by trying to juggle work, Chem, and life (sad isn't it?). I struggle to manage my time while the child below struggles to survive. I woefully attempt to earn my second degree when this child will likely never attend school much less make it to adulthood. I rack my brain for ways to make my life and career "more meaningful" while this child likely begs and pleads for a meal. And yet many who have nothing have a faith and understanding of God that far surpasses ours. What is this life we have created in the modern world? One where our "challenges" consist of managing the stress induced by juggling our blessings?
(Image via World Press)
In C.S. Lewis' book "A Grief Observed" he writes about facing challenges and the faith it produces after the death of his wife. A man who many regard as a spiritual leader, vastly insightful on the subject of God and faith, with a firm foundation in the Gospel describes his faith as a house of cards. If a man such as this describes his faith this way....what does that make mine?
"I already knew that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned - I warned myself - not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the programme. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accepted it. I've got nothing that I had bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn't for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for others people's sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because is was a house of cards... It has been an imaginary faith playing with innocuous counters labelled 'Illness,' 'Pain,' 'Death,' and 'Loneliness.' I thought I had trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Now it matters, and I find I didn't... And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are not playing for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man...out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover himself."
I will probably never know the depths of my faith until I know true sorrow, pain, and torture. I pray that it will never come to this for me; to see that my faith is indeed a house of cards, that my "confidence" is set on sinking sand and not the solid rock of Christ, that I am only as strong as my God and nothing else will get me through this world. I have been challenged more in the past year than anytime in my short life so far and it has shown me the depths of my faith. I wade out into the shallow water and begin to flounder. I have yet to be thrown into the deep end of life, into real troubles, sorrows, challenges. I pray to God that I will be smart enough to grab on to His life preserver and not keep hold of my own stubbornness, making my way to shore unprotected and alone. But....
"....I must surely admit that, if my house was a house of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better."
My prayer today will be for gratitude, patience, faith and compassion for these are the things that will get me through life's challenges, come as they may.
Have a lovely week!
