“You need to have faith.” Most of the time, I hate these words. It’s not that I don’t have faith or that I have anything against encouraging others to have it, but it’s the context in which these words tend to be spoken to me. When I’m going through a hard season or feel like I’m walking through the great unknown, the words, “You need to have faith,” don’t fill me with faith at all. They make me think, “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing this whole time?” and then I start to feel like I’ve done something wrong. I don’t walk away from these conversations feeling encouraged and empowered. Instead, I walk away feeling deflated and slightly condemned.

Chronic Illness

A few years before I was diagnosed with lupus, I was given a smaller diagnosis. Like most diagnoses, it came at an inconvenient time. I was living in the Philippines and had just been accepted into a graduate program to study piano performance in the States when I found out I had carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis in both of my wrists. Over and over again, people told me, “You need to have faith.” What they meant was, “If you want to keep playing the piano and get a Master’s in piano performance, God has to heal you.” I prayed for God to heal me. He didn’t. And I did get a Master’s in piano performance.

It took faith…

• to pursue a graduate degree in piano performance with carpal tunnel and tendinitis.
• to choose my repertoire and practice every day.
• to keep going and not quit when it got hard.

I know that God could have completely healed me and it would have been great, but my 70 minute recital with carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis was no less miraculous, no less glorifying to God. But didn’t that make it harder? Yes. I’ll get more into that later, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

When I was diagnosed with lupus, I heard it again: “You need to have faith.” What people meant was, “You need to be completely healed of lupus to be able to fully live your life. And if you aren’t healed, then you must not have enough faith.”

It takes faith…

• to get out of bed each morning when my body is stiff and in pain.
• to work. (According to the Lupus Foundation of America, only 31% of adults with lupus are employed full-time.)
• to continue to practice and prepare for performances.
• to plan for the future.

Speaking of the future…

A Dream Delayed

Ever since we were in college and still dating, my husband and I have dreamt of moving to Japan to start a church. It’s something we feel God has placed on our hearts. But even though we’ve been on a missions trip to Japan, we have yet to move there. There are things that we feel God has asked us to accomplish first—that’s why we moved back to the States—but lupus has caused those things to take much longer than we anticipated.

It takes faith…

• to keep moving towards this goal, even when things feel slow.
• to keep studying Japanese.
• to remember that God was not surprised when I received my lupus diagnosis and knew about it years ago when He placed the dream for Japan on my heart.
• to trust in God’s perfect timing and to rest in the fact that He is in control.

Unanswered Prayer

I’ve spoken about my infertility in other posts, so I won’t retell those stories here. What I will say is that unanswered prayer—no matter the subject matter—is painful. It fills us with the darkest of doubts and questions. Why didn’t God answer my prayer? Did I do something wrong? Does God really love me? Is God really who I thought He was? It’s in the midst of unanswered prayer when people’s statements of “You need to have faith,” are most painful to hear. Haven’t I been having faith all along?

It takes faith…

• to hope and pray when the doctor says words like, “zero percent chance.”
• to pray to God after being wounded by unanswered prayer.
• to continue to believe that God is good and that He is not withholding good from me.
• to choose to live with hope and purpose when you feel like your hope and purpose have been crushed.

The Truth About Faith

“And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:32-40)

Did you catch that? Hebrews 11 has been nicknamed the “faith chapter” of the Bible. If you want to know what faith looks like, this is where you look. So. Many. Miracles. And also weakness. And torture. And imprisonment. Oh, and also people who were destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. The life of faith isn’t as neat and tidy as many would have us think. In fact, if faith were easy, it wouldn’t be faith at all.

We do need faith, but not because God has called us to a life of comfort and ease. We need faith because life is hard.

So let’s get real for a moment. When the object of our faith is faith itself, it falls apart when things don’t go our way. But when the object of our faith is the God who is sovereign, loving, and good, then it can be subjected to hardships and still continue to stand.

Before you keep reading, I want you to pause and ask yourself this question: Is your idea of what faith looks like so narrow that it leaves little room to be surprised by God and to notice when He works in mysterious ways?

Too often we try to make the works of God fit into a box too small to contain Him. We think that when faith looks like x, God will do y. God’s ways are too creative and too wonderful for our preconceived ideas!

The God Who Can Do Anything. Literally.

Could you imagine what would happen if we believed God could do anything?

Let me give you an example of what I mean by anything.  Let’s say someone you know is sick. Do you believe God can do anything so He can heal them? That’s great! But believing God can do anything doesn’t stop there. He can heal how He wants and when He wants, and no matter how God decides to work, it’s going to be good and amazing, and even if He chooses to wait and doesn’t heal someone on this side of eternity, He can make them strong out of their weakness and use them to be the catalyst for a myriad of more amazing miracles that can change the course of history. God can do anything!

I hope that you’re getting really excited right now because I’m getting excited just typing this! If we can live with this kind of faith, can you imagine the kind of faith we can inspire in others? When people spend time with us, instead of walking away feeling discouraged about their lack of faith, they could walk into the great unknown full of faith, believing and expecting God to do anything!

So enough with telling people, “You need to have faith.” Let’s fill people with excited expectancy and say, “What if the God who is sovereign, loving, and good—the God who can do anything—is preparing to do something infinitely more amazing than we can imagine?”

This is the kind of faith that can change the world!

I’ve been doing research for a big project and that means that I get to read books galore!!! (If you’re into the Clifton Strengths Finder test, my second top strength is intellection. My personalized strengths insights report said, “It’s very likely that you derive much satisfaction from reading books…” So, yeah. I LOVE books.) My husband, who shares my obsession, helped me pick books for my research. He wrote down titles by authors like C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright.

And then there was one title he wrote down with a note: “Skim this. It might be helpful.” It was a book that talks about God helping us when we’re going through tough circumstances. I’m not going to name the book or author, but I’ll sum up one of his main ideas for you: Just trust Jesus; theology isn’t that important.

As the author proceeded to disparage theology, I wanted to shout, “You don’t understand what theology is!” As the great Inigo Montoya said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Theology, simply put, is the study of God.

How can we trust God if we don’t know whether or not He’s trustworthy? And how can we know He’s trustworthy if we don’t even know who He is? The people we trust most aren’t strangers or mere acquaintances; the people we trust most are the ones we know well. In shallow relationships, trust is unsustainable. If you want to be able to trust God, to be able to feel secure in Him when your world is falling apart, you need to know who He is, what His character is like, and what He is capable of doing. This, my friend, is what theology is for!

In The Great Omission, Dallas Willard wrote, “In the case of theological integrity and spiritual vitality, I think the idea is that you really can’t have the one without the other.”

Theology is not about having all the answers and knowing it all. The best theologians are brilliant, but not because they know it all. They’re brilliant because the more they study, the more they realize how much more there is to know about God, so they dig deeper and study more, and the cycle continues. We could never know everything about Him because He’s just too big and wonderful. And He’s SO wonderful that the more you study and the deeper you dig into who He is, the more you want to know more!

Theology is about knowing God—a God who is infinitely more than we can comprehend, yet who still invites us to know Him—to know Him deeply, and to continually seek Him so we can know Him deeper still. The deeper we know Him, the deeper our roots grow deep into who He is.

So how do we get to know God? Do we have to have graduate and post graduate degrees to have strong theology? No. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not against higher education. I have a master’s degree and my husband is in seminary right now. But strong theology is not reserved for only those with multiple degrees. Strong theology is cultivated by dwelling in God’s presence + digging deep into His word + being part of Christ-centered community. All three of these are things that every Christian can do!

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Hebrews 10:19-25

One day I’m gonna write a book where I delve deeper into all of this, but for now, please allow me to give you the short version:

It’s so important for us to dwell in God’s presence—to have an intimate relationship with Him—because He’s a relational God who cannot be known from afar. You can know about Him from afar, but to know Him, you have to get up close, spend time with Him, and experience His presence first hand.

It’s also important for us to dig deep into His Word because experience alone with no knowledge or understanding is fragile (and can lead to a lot of weird or dangerous beliefs!). We need truth to be our strong anchor.

Originally when I was writing this, my formula stopped here, but my husband pointed out that we need Christ-centered community. “It’s like a three-legged stool that falls if one of the legs is missing,” he said. It’s when we’re together when we can see outside of ourselves. Together, we see bigger, farther, and deeper. We help each other see and understand God in ways we wouldn’t be able to on our own.

If we neglect any of these components, we’re in danger of having an incomplete, shallow theology. And shallow theology crumbles in the face of suffering and doubt.

You see, having strong theology doesn’t mean that we never have questions or doubts. Instead, strong theology survives in the face of our hardest questions and our most painful doubts because it’s rooted in a God who is strong enough to handle them. Strong theology gives us roots in who God is that are so deep that even when the storm rages against us, we do not fall. 

Theology in Real Life

During a painfully dark season of my life when I felt barren and struggled to pray, I had coffee with a dear friend who tenderly gave me wonderful advice: When it’s hard to pray, start with simple, truth statements like, “God is good,” and pray something like, “God, You’re good. Help me know you’re good.”

Did you catch it? All three components of strong theology were there!

Dwelling in God’s presence (prayer)

+ digging deep into His word (simple truth statements)

+ being part of Christ-centered community (coffee with a friend)

This is what theology looks like in a real life! And I love how my friend’s advice is so simple and accessible, yet full of depth! I mean, yeah, “God is good” is one of those statements that can seem overly simplistic, but for those who are suffering or are feeling the sting of unanswered prayer, the statement, “God is good,” becomes far more profound, a statement to wrestle with God about. If you’re in a season of suffering or doubt and need more theological statements you can pray, here are some to get you started:

“Jesus loves me.”

“God is for me.”

“God is bigger than me and my circumstances.”

“God’s grace is sufficient for me.”

“God is not withholding good from me.”

“What’s true in the light is still true in the dark.” (This one’s a line from “Weep With Me,” by Rend Collective.)

If you’ve been intimidated by theology, let me end with a word of encouragement: You can do this! You can do theology! I know you can because God wants you to and He provided a way for you to be able to! So let your roots grow deep into who He is and get ready for an adventure of living theology in real life!