Faith and Trust

^{Romans 3:3 NIV}   What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?

^{John 1: 4 AMP} In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.

⁵ And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it].

Reading in Romans this morning –yes I’ve been stuck here for a very long time, but it is rich and begs comprehension- I wandered off on a side trail, though it is the truth of Paul’s discussion in that book that inspired my thought.

I grew up with parents that loved to camp.  By ‘camp’ I don’t mean a cottage in the woods, or even a pop-up or an RV in a cozy campground.  We did several weekend overnighters and holiday camps throughout the year.  But each summer, my parents would load enough food and equipment in our car, in later years in a panel van, to last our family of 6 two weeks.  We piled in with the dog and drove an hour or two into the rockies.  If it was late, I would crawl up into the window of that old car, put a blanket between me and the window’s cold and sleep mercifully until we reached our destination.

In the early years, we would spread out pallets of quilts under huge old spruce trees after cleaning off the rough dead branches from the lower trunk where the foliage had died off.  The denseness of the tree foliage would protect us from all but the worst rainstorms.  Often my dad would make us a lean to out of an old army tarp that smelled of treated canvas and years of use and storage –a smokey, musty, oily smell that I learned to appreciate somewhat.  This would protect our food prep and storage space from sap and bird droppings and give us a slight bit to huddle under against the frequent rains and occasional sleet.  Much of the living and cooking was done about a carefully crafted firepit.  Sometimes there were large ‘sitting’ rocks in the perimeter. Other times, we would place large old logs ‘round about for sitting.  Here we sang and ate and told and listened to stories until we were tucked in for the night under the trees.  Frequently I dosed off in my daddy’s arms and woke in my warm little nest in the morning.

Most mornings, we’d wake to the smell of breakfast cooking on the fire.  We’d fish or hike and explore during the days.  And then at night we’d have something warm to eat and drink and sit about again recounting the day’s fun and discoveries and then singing and telling stories until it was time to do it all again.

We lived that way for two weeks.  It is hard for my mind to reconcile with the spoiled commercial world that I now occupy.  The most curious part is how totally happy we were with the adventure.  But what has that to do with the issue of faithfulness or light?

Those family outings and sitting about that campfire in the cold Colorado nights had interesting similarities to the life of faith.  I’ll not hit on all of them here, but I will address the issue of interference and of faith vs. fear as it occurred to me this morning during my reading.

One of the most difficult arguments from those who have been wounded or wish to avoid the church and faith in general is that of unfaithfulness on the part of believers –most difficult, because it is most often true.  When you are the youngest in the family, and therefore the smallest, it is easy for others to block you from the warmth and light of the fire pit.  In a crisp Colorado air, where a passing cloud in the daytime can quickly make the warm earth frigid, nights are very cold.  Every bit of warmth is needed.  So just how should we handle people who interfere with our view of and connection to the light?  I don’t suppose they will ever go away –at least not on this earth.

Another issue is that of faith in the shadow of fear.  Camping in the mountains there was much to make you shiver besides the cold.  The wolves could be heard and the cows bawling because a calf had been taken by a wolf, bear, or mountain lion.  I knew calves.  I was smaller than they were.  There were lots of scary stories about.  And even if you ignore the natural predators, it’s a dangerous thing to run into an elk or moose in the dark.  I was taught early the stories that supported the deterring effect fire has on wild life.  My mom had lived for a time in the mountains when she was a girl and she always made sure there was a log smoldering safely in our camp site.  The fire literally never went out.  But when I found myself blocked away from the fire, fear would rage in young my mind.

But even as a young child I knew what to do.  My daddy was tall and he was strong.  He could lift me above the interference and the shadows.  He could put me on his shoulder where I believed I was safe.  Or he could hold me in his arms where his own protective warmth and mass made me know it was alright even if I could not see the light for a bit.

Yet I do understand not everyone has that picture or experience to use in the times when foolishness and evil become barriers to the light of God.  Yet God said he put the truth about himself into his creation.  When the sun is blocked, it remains true.  If immature believers block the light of God, He himself remains true and faithful.  It is not the believer who brings us light, but the Father.  Even when the shadow of the earth brings darkness, the light is faithful.  Even if we don’t really understand, the light is faithful.  And so His children can find his hand in the dark and He will lift them, in good time, to the light.  Faith is a gift; trust is a choice.