complex faith

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.

—Psalm 46:1-3

I hate too-simple statements of faith. God is good and trustworthy, yes, and we can go forward into life believing that he will take care of us because he will, but the manner in which he cares for his people is not all sunshine and smiley faces and roses.

What I like about those three verses from Psalm 46 (above) is that they embrace the reality that we will experience times of trouble. There is no promise in this passage that God will remove trouble from us or that a faithful person will experience no difficulty. Instead, God’s promise is to be with us in the storm, even the storms that threaten to rip our world apart.

It is this promise, the promise of his presence, that I find myself clinging to. It does not solve all of my problems or even make my problems less severe. (Sometimes, rather, hoping in him seems to raise more questions than it answers). But that is the way of it—and that is the only way to seek him.

Simple faith is undone easily. Relationship with God is no simple thing. Complex faith will make your head spin and leave you, at times, crying or screaming even as you insist that you do believe. This is the faith of prophets. This is the faith Jesus had. This is the faith God calls us to. A faith that is complex and includes (rather than “solves”) the problem of suffering.