Tish Harrison Warren, “Faith, I’ve come to believe, is more craft than feeling. And prayer is our chief practice in the craft.” (8)
Prayer in the Night
When I say I have faith in God, is it a feeling I have toward God? Or a set of thoughts or beliefs about God? Or something else?
To be sure, there is an aspect of faith that is in the mind. What we think about the nature of God and life is part of faith. However, faith is lived or not. What we believe and how much we understand informs our experience of faith. It can even shape how we feel our faith. When we talk about faith as something we feel, I suppose we’re talking about our trust in God, or maybe, sometimes, even our hope. Perhaps belief is the faith we think, and trust is the faith we feel.
Sometimes I feel my faith in God and sometimes I don’t. For example, I know that God brings healing. Both Christian dogma and doctrine and my lived experience affirm this. I have faith in God’s desire and ability to heal and I believe in God’s healing work – both the miraculous and collaborative. It’s just sometimes God doesn’t heal us when we pray and ask for that very thing, in the name of Jesus. So even as I’m praying, sometimes I can’t muster the feeling of faith — the hope or trust that God’s answer to my prayer will be healing. I don’t “believe” a miracle is coming.
Some would say, then, that I don’t have enough faith. I don’t believe enough. But I do have faith that God does miracles, does heal. I believe God listens to us, loves us, cares about us. It’s why I pray at all.
But faith also has to reckon with the truth that sometimes God doesn’t work the miracle we ask for, and that God’s desire and ability to work miracles is not dependent on the amount of faith of the requesting party. There is not a faith deposit one must submit to qualify for a miracle or blessing from God.
There are many stories in the Gospels about faith and miracles. Peter is able to walk on water when Jesus calls him because he believes, but then begins to drown when he panics about the wind. Jesus calls him, “ye of little faith.” Enough faith to get out of the boat and walk a bit, but not enough to get to Jesus. Still, Peter is saved. There’s the man in the Gospel of Mark asking if Jesus could heal his child. When Jesus questions the man, he responds, “I believe. Help my unbelief,” and the child is healed. There’s the hemmoraging woman who has so much faith that she only needs to touch Jesus’ robe to be healed, and the Syrophoenician woman who has faith enough to compel Jesus to exorcise her demon-possessed daughter without being in the same town. But there’s also the water-into-wine at the wedding in Cana incident. The disciples believed in him after the miracle. Same is true for when Jesus calms the storm, feeds the 5,000, feeds the 4,000, and dies on a cross and is raised on the third day. That last one was even his miracle for the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they never do believe.
Faith is not just a set of beliefs or a worldview we think. Perhaps faith is also less a feeling of certainty in God’s trustworthiness or goodness and more about the actions we take, the choices we make, even when we don’t understand, even when we don’t feel hopeful? Was I really without faith when I doubted God’s existence but asked others to pray for me? Am I faithless when I ask a friend for help first, before turning to God in prayer? What if, instead, faith is a craft?
Come Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Growing up, I heard a lot about faith being a gift from God. It was very important to recognize that faith was created by God, came from God, and directs us back to God. Like a cosmic tractor beam that kept us tethered. This caused me no small amount of consternation when I couldn’t feel my faith — when I felt abandoned, wandering, or lost. Had I somehow been dislodged from tractor beam? How did I let go? Did God let go of me?
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The Apostle Paul writes about faith as a gift of God a couple times, but mostly to reiterate that faith is not something earned, deserved, or rooted in one’s ability. Paul’s “gift of faith” is to emphasize faith as something from God, empowered by the Spirit, and given in particular for the benefit of others. Paul understands the gifts of God’s Spirit are different based on the individual, but ultimately have their purpose in being useful for the building up of the unity of the community. In the passage from 1 Corinthians, one might be given faith, but one might given instead the ability to heal or to preach. It almost seems like maybe everyone doesn’t get the gift of faith, but in Ephesians it sounds more like faith is a gift from God for all who believe and choose to accept it. Faith brought grace, and with grace came salvation, and all these gifts given so that we might do good works.
So what kind of gift is faith?
Paul is pretty adamant that the gift of faith is unearned – something given by the Spirit as God sees fit. Paul, and others in the Bible, also are pretty consistent that gifts given by God are for the good of the community. But is faith like a necklace or a boat – something you either possess or you don’t? Or is it like an art project or a plot of land? Something to work on together with God to bring more beauty into the world, to tell the truth, to nurture joy, and to make hope more accessible to others.
If I consider my faithfulness in my marriage, it is a nearly constant feeling of love and belonging to my spouse. It is a general goodwill towards him, giving him the benefit of the doubt, choosing our unity over any desires or distractions that may try to pull us apart. This isn’t to say there aren’t issues on which we don’t agree or moments or days when the feeling of being enamored with the other is subsumed under situational feelings of frustration, betrayal, irritation, or disappointment. But the situational feelings pass. They are not the constant. When the storm blows by, what remains is our love and positive regard for one another, our commitment to work toward reconciliation and unity, to work together to be a better couple for our sakes and the sakes of our children and community. I’m no fool. This marriage is a gift from God. A blessing for me and for others.
But the faith in our marriage is not just what we think about each other or believe about marriage. Neither is it just a feeling of trust. It is the behaviors and choices we make, informed by our thoughts and feelings. Perhaps it is the same in having faith in God.
The gift of faith, then, is the relationship – the general positive regard and goodwill towards the other. The work of giving the other the benefit of the doubt, sharing one’s thoughts and dreams, patiently supporting the other even when you disagree. It’s treating the doubts and the questions and the sufferings and the uncertainties not as threats to the relationship, but as opportunities to turn back toward each other, to try again, to forgive together, to pick each other again. When I had my first miscarriage, I was devastated and I was very angry at God. I didn’t pray for a while. I gave Him the cold shoulder. Then, when I did pray, I only pleaded or yelled. But I knew, even then, that one day I wouldn’t feel like that anymore. I knew, even as I was furious and disappointed in God, pissed off and hurt, that it wouldn’t last. I screamed at God for 8 months before He ever said a peep back. He let me scream and be sad and blame Him. He loved me when I didn’t even like Him. I think, maybe, He had faith in me, in us.
God’s faith in me was enough until I was ready to work together again. We still work on our relationship. We do it for my sake, for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of all the relationships in my life. I’m not sure there’s much difference between faith and life itself.
