We all know what ‘doubts’ are … but what’s ‘faith’?
We might immediately think of Hebrews 11:1 – “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.
This suggests we have to have an unshakeable conviction that what we do not see (i.e. pretty much everything to do with God) is “certain”, in the sense of concrete, factual certainty. And that in relation to what we hope for (such as all the things we pray about), that if we aren’t absolutely “sure of” it happening, then we are lacking this thing called faith.
So, in order to ‘have faith,’ are we expected to practice hard at eliminating any doubts entering our minds on anything to do with the Christian faith, and forgetting any questions about any things that ‘don’t quite add up for us at the moment’?
If questions creep in, is it a case of putting our fingers in our ears, shutting our eyes and shouting very loudly: “I’m not listening …!”?
Perhaps it’s this understanding of having faith (the suppressing of questions) that drives Christians to counsel others “you’ve just got to have faith”. Sounds like they are opposites: faith, or questions.
If we are reading what Hebrews 11:1 seems to say correctly, then very few of us have faith, really and truly. Only those pastors and leaders who never seem to have any doubts, or not that we hear about, anyway.
But is it what it’s saying? Might there be something more?
If we read on in Hebrews 11, verse two tells us that this thing called ‘faith’ is “what the ancients were commended for” (‘ancients’ being, a host of Old Testament characters, whom it then lists).
If we look at what kind of faith they were commended for, though, the notion of concrete mental certainty and absence of questions doesn’t seem to come into it.
The focus of the Hebrews 11 examples in the rest of the chapter is not what was going on in their thoughts from time-to-time but what they did in practice. Don’t mishear me: I’m not promoting ‘works’ instead of ‘faith’. But Ancient world understandings didn’t separate beliefs in the head from beliefs as something lived out in practice, like we often do.
What I am saying is this: whether we are walking in accordance with faith or unbelief is determined by whether we live our lives in a way that conforms to our beliefs being true, as represented by the life decisions we take: whether we act faithfully, pray fervently, love sacrificially, lay down our lives for our friends (or our friends for our lives), how we use our money, what drives our ambitions, and so on. Not the absence of any questions, or uncertainty as to whether we’ve got it all right, going through our heads.
The opposite of faith is unbelief (not questions, or doubts).
Our faith level is not determined by a bar code scanner of our thoughts, but by what we do. Walking in faith is about where we choose to walk, and how we choose to walk, not an absence of competing thoughts while we’re walking.
It’s rather like the difference between temptation and sin. Many Christians get weighed down and feel failures – and often give up – because they experience bad temptation, confusing that with sin. But it isn’t. Sin is acting on the temptation. Sin is not what goes through your head, but what you do as a result. Do you do right or do wrong in response?
Jesus’ temptations in the Wilderness were not a token ‘tick box’ exercise – ‘done temptation, moving on’, and nor were they merely symbolic. If they had been, then he wouldn’t have been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). But he was. He was tempted to doubt his role and his calling, tempted to abandon the mission because what he had believed might be wrong.
If the possibility of acting on those doubts didn’t cross Jesus’ mind, then it wasn’t real temptation.
Jesus walked in faith when he resisted the temptation to give up his mission on the basis of doubts running through his mind whether he had got it right. The fact doubts came weren’t the issue. The issue is what he would do. He chose to go with his beliefs and continue to act on them. That’s faith in action.
So too, with the ‘ancients’ in Hebrews 11. Faith was defined by taking actions, living out their lives, consistent with certain beliefs about themselves, God and his purposes; not constant mental assurance of being unshakably right about those beliefs.
So, it’s OK to have questions, and to have doubts. Because walking by faith is when, ’in faith’, we live our lives in a way that is totally consistent with what we’ve believed being right. It’s a manner of living, not a way of thinking.
After all, if we know something for sure, then we really don’t need faith, do we?