Faith?

My friend Kenny asked about my view of faith when things like the unspeakable tragedy that happened Friday, or for that matter, the shooting in Aurora happen.

I understand why it might be hard to have faith in God when things like this happen, but what you saw afterward was an outpouring of faith, from our President on down.  Churches were filled as people turned to God for comfort, and to join in prayer for those that need God's comfort more than anything right now.

Sometimes, when horrific things happen that we can't understand, faith is all we have.  I could go on and on about God's place in our culture and in our own lives, and probably will in the coming days. But for now, all I can say is this:

I have faith in God and God's people.  I have an understanding that none of us can understand the slaughter of innocent children.  The thoughts of it make me weep and just want to hold my own kids, and they're grown.

My faith isn't in man, and it was a human who caused this. Human beings are capable of incredible cruelty.   My  faith is in God, who can and will heal broken hearts.  My faith is in His word to us, which doesn't promise things will be easy and bad things won't happen to us, but does promise us that Jesus will return and those who believe in Him who is the Name above all names, will have everlasting life with Him.  My faith comes in believing the Bible is the inerrant word of God and that He means what He says in it.

And my prayer for all of us is that we seriously take a look at the society we've allowed to be built around us.  We've escorted God from schools, from the public square, and we don't want to be told what to do by a "religion".  We want to be spiritual and not be confronted with His truths.  God doesn't fit in the personal box we put Him in and He's not going to fit in one that we as a country put Him in.

There's a story in the New Testament about Peter walking on the water to Jesus.  As long as he was looking at Jesus, he was fine, but the minute he looked around at the raging storm and waves, he began to sink and Jesus had to save him.  Jesus asked him why he doubted, and Peter was there with Jesus.  I can think of no better story to tell than this to explain faith in difficult times and I give glory to God for putting it in my mind to share.

If more peopole practiced our "faith" in public, and for that matter in private, maybe our society would be a little bit better place.  Jesus said the first Commandment is to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole soul, and the second one to love our neighbor as ourselves.  One of the biggest and most unforgivable things I ever did as a parent was to never take my children to church.  They never saw their father worship his God, even though back then I would have been the first to hop on the "keep Christ in Christmas" bandwagon.  My children were never given a spiritual background and now it's a battle to help them understand how important that is.  My kids may be good kids and know right from wrong, but they surely don't know God and that's a tremendous failure on my part.  As much as God isn't a part of our society today, He wasn't a part of my home and look at the disasters in my life because of it.  I found saving faith in Jesus Christ.  It changed my life.  In times like this, when I don't understand, I find solace in knowing that God is still on His throne, a steady presence in time of trouble.  I can find comfort in His word.  I can find rest in His promise to me that because I believed on Jesus, I've been redeemed.

My faith, despite the awful things that happen in life, is rock solid because it's built on faith in the One who says He is that Solid Rock.   My best suggestion and prayer would be for each person who reads this and finds it hard to have faith in God to talk to God about it.  Take stock of your personal relationship with Him.  He's there.  And I'll bet He's waiting.