When it gets complicated

Today I wanted to walk by faith. I knew the walk of faith is a moment-by-moment choice to trust God rather than going with self-gratification or leaning on my own understanding.

But then it got complicated. I had work I needed to do, but I got a phone call from a woman who is stuck in a pit and wanted to talk. So where was the pathway of faith then? Was it with the work I needed to get done? Or was it with the woman who wanted to talk? Was the choice of faith to let go of the task and to trust God with getting it done later? That seems on the face of it like the nobler choice—“people before tasks”—although a case could be made that we must attend to our duties.

Depends what the duties are, I guess. It also depends on the particular woman and the nature of the conversation. What if it’s a woman who constantly needs to talk but never listens and is only interested in persuading you of her side? What if in her case to continue listening is to enable? What if you have been plain to the point of bluntness?

And yet, does one unceremoniously cut her off? The fact that she is so deluded and angry with God is itself a condition that needs the care of the brethren, is it not? Who needs to be in contact with a sister more than she?

So the choice of faith at any given moment is not always pat. It does not necessarily come with 100 percent certainty. Even if one is willing to take that path, then one is confronted with the question of which of two or more alternatives is the path of purest faith. Was I certain that the best thing to do was spend the entire morning on the phone? No. Was I certain that the best thing to do was to politely cut off discussion and do my work? No. Neither path came with a postcard from heaven. Why does God leave us with ambiguity? Would we not gladly do what He wanted if He told us what it was? Then we wouldn’t have to wrestle so much.

But maybe this frequent ambiguity itself is part of the struggle of faith and the commendableness of faith and the glory of faith—that we walk with the light we have, searching our hearts, and then take a decisive step, putting all in God’s hands and trusting He will take care of the outcome even if we have not judged the situation 100 percent perfectly. It is harder, and a greater test of faith in God, to trust Him with ambiguity than intellectual assurance.

Was I negligent in my work this morning to talk to the woman for hours? Would I have been negligent in loving my sister if I had gone for the task instead? God knows. But we “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling,” and the very practice of the walk makes perfect. This is what the writer of Hebrews says, promising progress to those who in a constant and determined manner daily follow the teachings of the Word and inner promptings of the Spirit: “[B]y this time you ought to be teachers. … [S]olid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to discern good from evil.”