When your faith requires faith

Do you know that I am almost never sure that I should write the essay I am about to write? And then, after I sit down and write it, I am almost never sure I should have?

It just happened again. I got on my knees by the computer, as is my habit, to ask God for help, guidance and skill from the Spirit, and freedom from great error.

And then I sat down on this swivel chair with fear and trembling.

I like that the Bible has the phrase “fear and trembling” when it describes our Christian life, as in “Therefore, my beloved, … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). It’s well said. We take a step, with something less than 100% certainty, and then another step. Repeat. But what else can we do? Not walk at all?

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a Danish philosopher who wrote a book called Fear and Trembling, about Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. But I’m guessing it had some heretical bits. (See 1 Corinthians 1 on philosophers.)

I will throw you a few typical daily dilemmas, so as not to be as opaque as Kierkegaard. On a regular fasting day (Mondays for me), if I haven’t slept the night before, do I say to myself, “It would be wise, and fair to my employer, to eat something before I go off to work”? Or do I say, “I will trust in the Lord to sustain me without food and sleep”? Don’t answer too fast, because if you give it a minute, it gets complicated.

Here’s another example from real life. (Am I telling you too much? I’m not sure!)

I’m the church cleaning lady, and I have to work on Sundays (that’s not the dilemma part yet) because we have a community school ministry downstairs with lots of classrooms that need to be shipshape for Monday morning after we use it for our own Sunday school.

On weekdays at work, I like to listen to interesting podcasts. It makes the time fly. But it has occurred to me that when God said in His Ten Commandments that we are to keep the Sabbath “holy,” He was indicating that we should make a distinction between this one day and the other six. Holy means “set apart,” after all. It would be appropriate, therefore, if I refrained from my podcast addiction to just be quiet and pray for one day. Or maybe I should at least just listen to sermons.

So what do you think? To be honest, I usually start out with a sermon, or “the Bible read slowly,” or some preacher in France. (That way I brush up my French.) But after a while it creeps up to all kinds of podcasts that will “enrich me spiritually.” Of course the Lord alone knows the secrets of the heart (Psalm 44:21; 1 Corinthians 14:25).

Which brings me to a comment of Paul’s that has long made me ponder. He writes to the Corinthians, in partial self-defense against their unwarranted accusations:

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God” (1 Corinthians 4:3–5).

It has often pained me to hear this passage preached as some proof of a doctrine of depravity or Christian life as a tissue of sin. What the apostle is saying is clear to me: “I do the best I can by God’s grace, by prayer, and by study of His Word, putting one foot in front of the other, and not allowing my energies to be consumed in constant second-guessing, but rather, pressing forward. As far as I know, I am obeying God. I am aware of no secret sin. If I am wrong, He will let me know when He returns.”

So the subtitle of this column could be: “Working through daily challenges according to God’s Word in sometimes nearly 50–50 or 49–51 situations, and finally picking one way, and not looking back.” It’s a longish subtitle, but they did that kind of thing in Jonathan Edwards’ day.