Faith in the Middle of It

I used to think strong faith meant always feeling peaceful, certain, and sure of what God was doing.

I thought faith meant not questioning.

Not doubting.

Not being afraid.

I thought if I truly trusted God, I would somehow be able to walk through every hard thing with a calm heart and an unwavering belief that everything would work out exactly the way it was supposed to.

I don’t believe that anymore.

The older I get, the more I understand that faith can look very different in the middle of real life.

Sometimes faith looks like praying while you are scared.

Sometimes it looks like crying while you are asking God why.

Sometimes it looks like sitting in silence because you do not even know what to pray anymore.

And sometimes faith is nothing more than saying, God, I do not understand any of this, but I am still talking to You.

There have been times in my life when I have felt close to God, and there have been times when He felt very far away.

There have been prayers I believed would be answered one way, only to watch life go in a completely different direction.

There have been moments when I have wondered why certain things were allowed to happen.

There have been times when I wanted answers and received silence.

And I have learned that those moments do not mean faith is gone.

They mean I am human.

Faith and fear can exist in the same heart.

So can faith and grief.

Faith and anger.

Faith and disappointment.

Faith and questions.

For a long time, I thought those feelings were signs that I was failing spiritually. I thought I needed to push them away and replace them with something more positive.

Now I think God already knows what is in my heart.

He knows when I am afraid.

He knows when I am angry.

He knows when I am tired of waiting.

He knows the questions I am afraid to say out loud.

So why would I need to pretend with Him?

Some of my most honest prayers have not sounded beautiful at all.

They have sounded more like:

God, I’m tired.

God, I don’t understand.

God, I’m scared.

God, please help me get through today.

And sometimes that has been enough.

I am learning that faith does not always mean feeling strong.

Sometimes faith is choosing not to give up when everything inside you feels exhausted.

Sometimes it is taking one more step when you cannot see very far ahead.

Sometimes it is handing something over to God and then realizing an hour later that you picked it right back up again.

And then handing it over again.

I think that is part of being human too.

We want to trust, but we also want control.

We want to believe things will be okay, but we have lived long enough to know that painful things can happen.

We want peace, but our minds keep returning to every possible outcome.

Faith does not always make those struggles disappear.

Sometimes faith simply gives us somewhere to bring them.

I have stopped believing that faith should make life look easy.

Life is not always easy.

Healing is not always easy.

Waiting is not always easy.

Trusting God when you cannot see what comes next is definitely not always easy.

But maybe faith was never meant to be about pretending those things are easy.

Maybe it is about continuing to reach for God while we are in the middle of them.

Not after we have everything figured out.

Not after the storm passes.

Not once we have all the answers.

Right in the middle.

In the fear.

In the waiting.

In the unanswered prayer.

In the grief.

In the uncertainty.

In the ordinary days when nothing seems to be changing.

That is where I am learning faith lives too.

I still have questions.

I still worry.

I still have days when trusting is harder than others.

But I am beginning to understand that faith does not require me to have all the answers.

It asks me to keep showing up.

To keep praying.

To keep believing that I am not walking through this life alone, even during the times when I cannot clearly see what God is doing.

Faith does not always remove the storm.

Sometimes it gives us enough strength to keep walking through it.

And sometimes, when we cannot even find that strength ourselves, faith is simply whispering:

God, I’m still here.

Please stay with me in the middle of it.