A restless present

I was reading Philip Yancey's book Reaching for the Invisible God the other day when I came across this sentence, "Strong memories soothe a restless present". It stopped me. I stared at that sentence - and stared at it. It was what I needed.


In the chapter I was reading, Yancey had been talking about what it means to walk in faith in our present circumstances. Sadly, it seems that much of the time, the lives we actually experience appear to betray our notions of what the Christian life is "supposed" to be. We believe in a God who is powerful, and who loves us and who intervenes in the affairs of men and who answers prayer and delights in blessing us. That's what we believe - a personal, intimate, powerful, loving God who is actively involved in our lives. We also have assumptions of what a life like that is supposed to look like - supposed to feel like. But we all go through times when one (or many) of those characteristics of a relationship with God seem seem to be absent - or just plain false. Times when God seems neither powerful nor loving. Times when He seems to be in no particular hurry to answer prayer or be involved at all.


What does it mean to walk by faith in those times? How is faith maintained?


Yancey argues that a key to walking by faith in the present is the ability to hold onto the past and the future at the same time. To lift our eyes from our current life and gaze at the life to come and also to look back at God's faithfulness and intervention in the past. We see His involvement and his faithfulness to his promises much easier when we look at broad brush strokes over long periods of time. We have to have these types of bird's eye views on our life or else we'll go crazy. Our circumstances will draw us away from what we know and believe about God. We'll believe the lie that our present circumstances teach us.


To a large degree, faith is the ability to trust in the goodness of God even when all the circumstances of our life seem to argue against it.


I know what it feels like to go through long stretches of silence - when God seems to have forgotten my address - times when a relationship with Him does not at all feel like I thought it would feel. I know what that's like.


And I imagine that anyone who might be reading this blog also knows what it is like. Yancey's statement is a good reminder to lift our eyes - to take a deep breath and gaze far into the future and into the past - to see that our present circumstances are not the complete story. There is more to life than meets the eye.


Don't be fooled. God still loves you. He is still in control. He is still listening. He still deserves our trust.


Hang in there.