I’ve been trying to write a post about faith for a while now. I am not sure how to start. Faith is highly personal and I have no wish to upset the apple carts of others. I have friends and family and loved ones far and wide who all sit at the same table, partake of the same truth, and come away with completely different views of fulfillment.

When my boys were little, I taught them that Jesus was always in their hearts and they could carry Him around with them everywhere all the time. I wasn’t just saying that because I wanted them to be good. I meant it. We are so full of Jesus right from the beginning and we don’t even know it! That’s what love is. The yearning to keep that love connection is what leads us to a relationship with God. And that’s the closest to “witnessing” I ever got!

I did not proselytize unless my boys had a question for me (which of course they did), or a challenge during confirmation they wanted to talk out (which they did). I never pushed. I probed around the edges. We prayed together. We participated in Advent and Lent. Andy and I took them to Sunday School and worship service. We taught them the Lord’s Prayer. We tried to live by example. I lived in fear of pushing my own beliefs on them. My parents did that to me and it took almost two decades to undo the damage. I don’t know. We did what we knew to do at the time. Now that the boys are almost grown, it is their turn to find their own truths. We still pray at dinner and family gatherings. We still attend church together as a family. We are here for guidance and support.

I am a United Methodist by choice. I promised to uphold the church with my prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Well, all hail John Wesley, but I’m not good at or comfortable with the witnessing part of the equation. The prayers, presence gifts, and service part, I do pretty well. I like a good debate. I enjoy an exploration. I like talking about and talking through personal questions and experiences. I like sharing meals and singing hymns. I like corporate prayer recitations, and taking communion. I enjoy being with fellow believers on Sunday mornings. I love the idea that people all over the world are reciting the same prayers and believing in the same God at the same time. That is powerful!

The idea of witness, or “leading someone to Christ” makes me cringe. I don’t know why exactly, it just does. To be blunt, people get really uncomfortable talking about “being saved.” Well, I understand that. It’s a hard thing to talk about. How on earth do you explain the moment you were touched by God? How do rationalize how you came to know and feel the presence of Jesus in your heart whether or not your mind understands it? It doesn’t always happen all at once. For many of us (self included) it’s a longer, quieter, softer journey. Some of us grow up in a church, with Christians all around us, and don’t have a clue what salvation really means until one day, you just know.

I do have sympathy with people who struggle to find a church home, or a faith journey of any kind. Growing is not static. How can I grow and yet feel comfortable enough to take a risk and ask a question? I have been in that moment so many times, I could take up residence there.

I love a good Bible study, but I don’t truck with us versus them theology. I have seen and known and loved so many people who have been hurt by the church or the “faith community” at large that I have developed an allergy to judgment by the church. This is unfortunate, because speaking the truth in love is very powerful. As a rule, this truth speaking is not done very well by the church–or by humans in general. I am amused and ashamed by turns at how often I find truth outside of “Christianity”–as if we are the only owners of all that is good or holy or true.

So for those of us on the journey, with someone on a journey, or anti-journey at all, here is my attempt at witness. For my knowing friends and doubting friends, intractable believers and non-believers alike, I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact you are never alone. Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. Both states co-exist for me all the time. It is in the wrestling and the crisis and the confusion that faith is strengthened. Oswald Chambers wrote in the book, My Utmost for His Highest, “faith by its very nature must be tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds.” I promise you friends, God is big enough for our little mustard seeds of faith.

Pondering how God is willing to include every single human ever created, because of his immense, all powerful love that obliterates every single moment of human suffering, wrong doing, unkindness (the list is endless) is overwhelming. The idea that God created an atonement so perfect and so complete that all wrongs are made right is more than I can wrap my judgmental heart around. There are simply no words to describe such a gift. There are often no words to explain how accepting this gift changes your life. Those changes may be so subtle that you won’t even know it until you lived with it a while.

The beauty of the mystery of faith is that it is a mystery. We try to put words and rules and belief systems around the mystery of a perfect incarnate God and call it faith and discipline and righteousness. We’ve been trying to describe the same mystery for centuries and we’re no better at it now (and perhaps much worse) than we were then.

Religious labels in general have been taking a beating since the dawn of man. The number of wars fought and the amount of blood shed in the name of “your version of God here” is mind blowing. For those who find the world full of hate and anger and envy and distrust, the idea of loving anything can be so scary. Many people will scoff and say that love is just love and has nothing to do with God or any other “whatever is out there”. If we believe that we are made in God’s image (many don’t, I do), then our understanding and expression of love comes from God. Does that mean love doesn’t get warped and tarnished and distorted or shattered by humanity? No, it doesn’t. Love is destroyed every day. We keep going back to the well anyway, because we believe in an ultimate goodness. We believe in right over wrong. Light over dark. Good over evil. You call it what you want, I call it Love. And, God.Is.Love.

A long time ago when I was in a small formation group at church someone asked, “where does the Christianity piece come in to doing good? Even atheists do the right thing..” Inevitably, the next question for me was, “if we’re all going around doing the right thing and following a similar moral order and helping each other in the name of humanity, does being a Christian even matter?”

This question is a big deal to me. I’ve raised two children in the Christian faith and I’m trying to live a life based on a belief system I think is worthy. If Jesus can’t be more than just a good guy, then for me the mystery and power of my faith is lost. I’ve known lots of good guys in my life. I’ve had many role models. I’ve even known some true believers who inspired me to make life better. But I have to tell you there are very few people out there who have emulated the truly sacrificial nature of what perfect love looks like.

The essence of Christianity for me is a true understanding of what it means to sacrifice for someone else. To lay down one’s life for one’s friends–notice I didn’t say for something you believe in, or for war, or for an idea–but for another human being. There are many types of relationships that emulate this idea of self-sacrifice: parents and children, brothers and sisters, soldiers who share a foxhole, young love, soul mates, kindred spirits. There isn’t a lack of stories about people doing incredible things or making ultimate sacrifices in the name of love for someone. What there is a serious lack of is day to day commitment to making all people matter. God’s love extends to all people in all religions, in all walks of live, in every corner of this beautiful earth that we are so intent on destroying for our own purposes. Our commitment to His kingdom has to include all people, because our claim on His love is no stronger than the love we have for all people.

“It takes a while to understand what you said yes to.”

Pastor Mark Gooden, First Centenary UMC, 10/21/2018

Return with me if you will to the call of the Methodist Church to pray and offer presence, gifts, service and witness to the church and the community at large. When we’re doing “the good work of the kingdom” we’re learning about the person we’re helping. We’re learning about ourselves and how our own lives rely on the generosity and willingness of someone else. We’re engaging in a relationship that may one day call on us to make a supreme sacrifice. It may not mean laying down our life, but it may mean challenging the social order. It may mean working for justice. It may mean standing up for something or someone unpopular. It may mean shutting up and listening so we can learn something. It may mean following a call that we don’t want to follow.

When we offer our time to share with another person (whether helping, healing, or hoping with them), we are saying you are worthy of my time. You are equally as important to me as anything or anyone else I was going to engage with today. You have an equal claim to the kingdom of God. You have an equal portion of His love and His grace and His abundance in whatever way you wish to take it.

Let’s claim our portion together friends, so that when the day comes when we are to lay down our lives for one another, we will do so with love and a willing spirit.

Perhaps that is witnessing after all?

Love Y’all, Marla