The Sylvr Pen

What’s faith about?

I’ll tell you what it’s not about: the person with the faith. It’s more about the one she has the faith in.

Trusting in an undependable person is madness. Trusting  in someone entirely reliable makes sense.

By the time I could sit laughing about my empty gas tank and pocketbook, I’d repeatedly seen God provide in amazing ways. “My” faith was about Someone Who’d already proved Himself the great Provider.

The Provider’s “Track Record”

New teaching assignment looming ahead at a school requiring “professional” dress, and I with nothing “professional” but my one interview suit—and no clothes money, I talked to God about it, and Matthew 6:28-33, and immediately, someone told me about the annual “Whale of a Sale,” the Junior League held “coincidentally” just before school’s opening day. Result: full wardrobe of fully lined 100% wool skirts and blazers, beautiful blouses and sweaters–for around $20! (Just take it out of groceries!)

When I needed a reliable car to get to job interviews, then later the job itself, and my (truly rusty!) “rust bucket” would no way pass state inspection, I took that need to God alone, and before inspection time rolled around, I owned a brand new, paid-for Mustang!

When all human attempts failed to find affordable rent, I prayed, saying I’d live,wherever God wanted, but decided I could mention the kind of little house and setting I’d most like. The real estate agent called, and directed me down that long, curving drive to just the cottage I’d imagined!

When, after contracting to rent it, I couldn’t scrape together the required escrow deposit, I said to God, “I thought you directed me to this house to rent, but I guess I’m going to have to eat crow and call the agent and tell her I don’t have the money, so I can’t rent the house.” But before I could call, the phone rang. It was my parents, saying, “We’ve been thinking. We don’t see how you could possibly have the money for all the deposits you must have to make…”

Things like that happened again and again. So when the problem of no gas and no money arose, which would be more logical to believe, based on all past evidence: that God would supply my need, or wouldn’t?

Blind Faith? Or Blind Unbelief?

Faith is not blind. Faithlessness in such a case would be blind–blind to all the evidence of past intervention and provision.

But how does faith begin? As a note in my Open Bible says (essentially), “Some people say that seeing is believing, but that’s not true. First you believe, and then you see.” But how do you believe… if you don’t believe?

That was my question, way back when I heard that radio message on Romans 10:9-13. (And why was I listening to that, anyway? I didn’t listen to stuff like that!) How could I–a skeptic if there ever was one–make myself believe? The radio preacher answered by quoting Jesus’ words to a man in desperation, “All things are possible if you believe”–and then the man’s response, words that became my prayer: “I believe; help Thou my unbelief!”

That prayer launched my faith’s maiden voyage. But that certainly wasn’t the last time I prayed it! Over and over I’ve called on God to strengthen my faith in Him and His word.

In fact, I just prayed that prayer this week. Though I believe He will meet all my needs, I still need His Spirit to strengthen where I’m weak.

“I believe, dear Heavenly Provider. Help my blind and foolish unbelief!”

“Now it is faith to believe that which you do not yet see; and the reward of this faith is to see that which you believe.” -Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

What happens when your faith grows enough to trust and obey God even when doing so seems utterly foolish to the rational human mind?

A) God intervenes and supplies and all turns out well

B) Finances go from bad to worse, and soon it looks certain that such radical trusting was madness.

The correct answer is… B!

But…

The correct answer is also A.

I learned this faith lesson firsthand a few short years after the crises the Trouble-time Provision posts told about.

As alcohol-fueled problems worsened, my alcoholic grew increasingly antsy to try to leave them all (and me) behind—and so he finally did. Of course, he took his root problem with him. My own problem now? Unemployed single parenthood.

While that state continued, I had no money to give back to God in gratitude for all the good He’d done me (which I’ll never be able to repay!) But once I had a job again, Malachi 3:10 (NIV) spoke to my heart, compelled me to tithe whatever money came in.  And God always supplied according to His promises in Malachi, and Philippians 4:14,16,19.

“Test Me in This…”

Then came one January evening when the figures I was scribbling simply couldn’t make the funds reach the needs. For the first time in three years I began to money-fret.

It was getting late. I needed sleep. But my agitation wouldn’t allow it. I added, subtracted, pondered, schemed.

Surely God would understand if I skipped tithing this month? He knew how frugally I’d been living, how there was nowhere I could cut the budget, how even leaving out the tithe, my money wasn’t going to suffice.

Suddenly I decided. Crumpling my scribbled papers, I flung them in the wastebasket, and declared, “I haven’t squandered. You’ve always supplied. I’m just gonna keep trusting You!”—and climbed into bed to a beautiful sleep.

Come monthly payday, first check I wrote? My tithe. After that, some must-do bills whose nonpayment would mean no fuel delivery, no day care, no roof overhead. And I waited for the child support check that would pay a few more bills. Beyond that, well, I’d just trust God—alone.

Where’s the Source?

My personal story had become like George Muller’s orphanage story: All along, I’d asked no one else for money, only God. I could have asked the school where I worked for a salary advance, could have borrowed against my wee bank account, could have asked parents or friends for a loan.

Yet any of these things would just put me behind, leave me playing catch up. Loans add interest, increase burden. Except my parents wouldn’t lend me money—they’d give it, and they’d already given so much I couldn’t even consider accepting, let alone asking for, more. I’d never asked them in the first place. They had just “happened to” call with offers right when a specific need, never voiced, popped up. I’d only prayed and put my need in God’s hands.

So now I did likewise with this situation.

Out on a Limb

The month rolled on. And so did the car, back and forth to and from work, burning up fuel. Fridge and cupboard neared empty. And the child support check didn’t come… (something about the tenant in our still-unsold house not paying rent on time…)

Till at last the morning arrived when I deposited toddler son and self into car, turned on ignition and saw gas gauge on E, then rattled the remaining couple coins in my purse and thought of empty bank account and that evening’s required school event and the babysitter needing pay and transport. And right now I had to get to day care center and job… on fumes.

I once heard someone say Christian faith is like climbing up a tree, going out on a limb, sawing off the limb…and watching the tree fall down. Well, I was there now! What would fall? Tree or limb?

What did I do? Laughed! Lifted up my head said, “Maybe I’m crazy, Lord, but I just believe you’re gonna drop money out of the sky.” And off I drove to work—and got there. How I’d get home was a problem for later. Now I was down to trusting God not just one day, but one hour, at a time.

Eleventh Hour, Fifty-ninth Minute

At school I got so busy I forgot the money desperation—until recess, when I visited the office to get my mail. Out of my mailbox, with the usual, came an unusual looking envelope bearing only my name. With no clue what it was, I still couldn’t wait to open it!

Sure enough, inside: a crisp ten-dollar bill, and a note from someone who never left me a note (or money) before or since, one of the secretaries, saying something like, “This is to help defray the evening’s expenses. This is strictly confidential.”

Which person in the office had engineered this?

No inkling.

But I knew its ultimate source! Near bursting, I wanted to catapult down those preppy-school steps shouting, “Praise the Lord!”

I kept my decorum, but my joy was exploding.

The cupboard at home sat bare. The gas tank here, too. But I now had enough to stretch between gas and enough to barely pay the babysitter. And we’re only supposed to concern ourselves with one day at a time, right? Just like with the manna?

Still, I couldn’t wait to get home and look in my home mailbox…

There, inside, just two bits of mail. An apology note from my landlady for neglecting to send the escrow interest I didn’t know she owed me—with said interest. And a bank statement for an account I didn’t know I still had. 

This was no fortune—thirty-five dollars in the bank account, less in the escrow check—but enough to stretch beyond hours to days, for just enough gas and food to get us through the week.

That week the child support check finally came, and two moonlighting jobs “fell” in my lap. So by its end, that month had more income than any in years. All bills paid!—with cash to spare!—and an unforgettable faith lesson that helps me even to today.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Pro 14:12)

Stress! The week before last felt like a seven-day battle, a relentless struggle through a long, claustrophobic tunnel, a seeming “lost week”—precious time just wasted! (You’ll notice no blog posts for that period.)

But after seven more days spent in soul searching and God searching, at last I emerged into His beautiful light, and settled into refreshing peace. I found myself restored to that sweet state of God-trust I’d experienced early in my Christian life—during that former stressful time I wrote about in the “Trouble- time Provision” posts.

And I realized that both now and formerly, I was blessed by… stress!

Return with me to where we left off in that long ago “trouble time.” Then fast forward, through my obedient six months of refraining from big decisions and faithfully attending meetings, to the point where the changes my (then) husband saw in me motivated him to venture into AA meetings and start “walking the walk” of  recovery. Advance a bit further, to where we made what turned out a huge error in judgment, just as a few knowing friends feared it was.

Easy Answer

It seemed such an easy solution to our financial plight: to sell our house, buy a cheaper one, and pay off bills with the profit. That was the trouble. It was too easy.

Though I had learned to stop taking on others’ responsibilities—particularly my husband’s (Gal 6:5), and God’s (1 Pet 5:7), and immediately started sleeping at night instead of tossing, turning, rising and pacing, my husband was now tossing, turning, rising and pacing. But that was good—because he was making constructive progress in repairing his own damage, and gaining dignity, strength, character in the process. During that year our financial crises also kept reminding both of us to trust God more and enlist His guidance and help. We were both growing in many ways.

Then that real estate friend told us about the beautiful white elephant now for sale back in husband’s hometown—that house he’d long admired. It was…a mansion, really. But this was a gas-and-oil crisis time, and no one wanted to buy such a big supposed heat-eater. Except us. In our situation it looked like a splendid idea.

Too Easy

The biggest trouble wasn’t the possible heating costs, but too quick an escape from bill-paying stress (in other words, responsibility).

The stress of fighting the battle of the bills and correcting bad money habits seemed bad—man pacing floor in the night, man’s brow knit with tension: that can’t be healthy, can it? Yet this kind of stress wasn’t what had produced that chest pressure and shooting arm pain the man had seen the doctor about two years before, to hear he had to quit drinking or it would kill him. What it was now producing was maturity.

But neither of us considered that—only what a delightful way we’d found to eliminate money problems fast and get the roomier home we now “needed,” what with baby crowded into a small room off ours. And what a steal of a price, which we reasoned couldn’t long remain that low. So we went for it.

Temptations of Ease, Blessings of Stress

In all the time of bill-paying stress my husband never had a drink.  Only after we sold our country house did he stop off for “just one” to “celebrate.” Then in next to no time we were back in the same horrible cycles.

That’s how the things that look good to man can turn out. And as Proverbs 14:12 warns, our way that seemed so right eventually led to the man’s tragic death at age 42, his body ravaged by alcohol beyond the surgeon’s ability to save it. Who can know if he would be alive today, had we persevered through that battle of stress, instead of taking the easy-out route?

Upcoming post: The flip side. Things of God that look foolish to man…

I’m hearing more and more “sick-of-the-white-stuff” complaints—wishes for this winter’s messy, hindering weather to end, restless frets over the cooped-up state it’s causing, the “cabin fever” and looming “March madness.” Good time, I thought, to resurrect this old post called “Whiteout!” to help anyone stuck inside (again!) get a different perspective, while we pray for those people who have little choice but to venture out bravely into the storm.

Oops, I’m late in putting out the garbage this week. But I had other things to do. And some of it’s hardly garbage. It’s still in the  fridge, starting to spoil–and there’s some other stuff there I can still use for healthful purposes, if I do it immediately.

The things that turn into the spiritual garbage of fermenting anger are like that…

Read more about this in today’s Spiritual Organization page, Maintaining Minimal Garbage.

(And enjoy the linked interview with and video of “Super Granny.”)