True to the Faith

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After living in my congregation for three years, a member of the leadership finally made a feeble effort to reach out to me this week. Rather than talk to me at church or visit me or do anything proactive, he chose the path of least resistance and sent me an email. I chose to ignore it so far, because he has no reason to believe I have seen it, and because email does not demand an immediate answer. As I stood in the shower this evening after my regular Friday racquetball, I pondered my predicament. I am not a conformist. I do not change to please the jury. I am not here to validate others. I am come to discover who I really am.

From my early school years, I learned that the reason why I was unwelcome, unacceptable, and unwanted by others was because I live what I believe. My Faith has cost me friends, opportunities, and love. I am not perfect, but since I really try to be on my best behavior most of the time, I know it makes some people nervous. Having a lion's share of moral fiber used to be more attractive than it is now, but now I think most people are less secure than they really let on, and so some people don't like that I show them that it's possible to be more than they are. At many critical junctures in my life, I suffered because of what I believe. I find I am in good company.

Last term, one of my students mistakenly assumed I was Catholic because I quoted Sir Thomas More, who is one of their saints. Inspired by the movie "A Man For All Seasons", I bought and studied the writings and life of this man. We know a lot more about him than we know about some other historical figures because Henry's daughter Queen Elizabeth I liked him and his son in law Lord Roper and preserved More's actual writings. Even to the death, More refused to leave his God and died His Majesty's good servant but God's first.

Conversion is not a seasonal event. Fair weather friends and seasonal saints do not usually bear much fruit in our lives. It was meant to be that way. If you forgive the following lengthy excerpt from Chapter 8 of Lewis' "Screwtape Letters":

He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtual as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

When we first recognize God in our lives, His presence looms large. Perhaps it's because it's so very new and unique that we notice it as we do, and I think it's also a function of who He is. God always attempts to speak to you. When you finally decide to pay attention to Him, He eagerly passes on all the things He's attempted to communicate to you while you ignored His whisperings. In order to prove that conversion is a true change of heart rather than for the free marshmallows of obedience, God withdraws and lets us show whether we really mean it.

As soon as you submit yourself to follow God, the world tests you. It doesn't like it when you do, and it doesn't like what fruits result from true submissiveness to His will. While I rode my bike this morning, God brought back to my remembrance this poem: "Good timber does not grow in ease. The harsher the gale, the stronger the trees." Many of God's favorite passed through more and deeper troughs than anyone else. Coming to God does not mean that things get easier as many people assume, but frequently it makes things more difficult. Now you have to prove that you mean what you say. If you want to learn to ride your own bicycle or be the quality of wood worthy of the workman's time then you eventually have to stand on your own and stand well.

Perhaps this is why the few admirers I have look up to me. They know where I stand. I cannot recount the number of times I stood looking around at all evidence that God had withdrawn everything from my life, asked why I was forsaken and then obeyed anyway. I will admit I often look up to heaven and ask God "Well, now what?", but He has always had my back, and so I will not leave Him. I will be true, for there are those who trust me, those who look to me, and I begin to believe that all of this is because people I have never met are watching me to see what I will do next.

Trusting God is hard for me sometimes. I have to remind myself of what He tells me, and I have to trust that He speaks to me in ways that I will understand. Sometimes what He says makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes me think. Sometimes I know I misheard it or didn't understand it. Yet, He continues to look after me and talk to me and exalt me at work, in my family, and among my peers. Twice in the last two years, I know that listening saved me from physical harm; at least once, I know it saved me from a financial error. So I will stand like More steadfastly because it has worked every time I tried it as long as I was the only agent affected. I have had people threaten my life, and God refused to let them take it.

When you do stand on your own, God gives you what you need. I have learned that God's blessings, while always sure, come when we really need them and how we can use them, and not necessarily in the form or timing that we prefer. When we leave Egypt, go up on the mountain, stand before the blood tribunal, or face a moral dilemma, we find that any appeals to God's camp are quickly answered. I keep an Austrian Shilling on the bookshelf downstairs to remind me that I have always had enough. It is the adversary who drags his followers down quickly when they fall. God upheld More, and we remember him today because God held More up as an example to which we might look to see what being true to the Faith really means. Once God puts it into your heart and mind what His will and plan for you is, stand firmly in that path. You know it, and God knows it.  Since He will not deny me, I will not deny Him. No matter what happens in the end, I'll be in good company, and there will be more like More, true to the Faith.