For many years before broadband Internet made virtual visits possible, my work took me all over North America. I enjoyed the travel except for flying, which was always the worst part. Several years ago, I had just finished working in Georgia, trying to resolve a particularly challenging tech problem for a customer. The weather was bad, I was exhausted and my flight out of Atlanta was delayed. By the time I arrived in Pittsburgh my connecting flight home had just departed. As I stepped off the ramp into the terminal, they were paging me to the service desk. The agent told me if you run, I can get you on a flight home right now. So, off I ran.
When I arrived at the gate, I ran down the ramp and the flight attendant welcomed me aboard. I turned the corner to find my seat and stopped dead in my tracks. The plane was empty. I looked at the attendant and she said, “Just sit anywhere you like, we’re leaving now. And happy Halloween.” I had forgotten it was Halloween. Nothing had been happy about it so far and now it had gone from bad to eerily weird. Setting there alone on a jet plane that had room for 170 passengers, I have to admit that as we taxied onto the runway the music from the old Twilight Zone TV show was playing in the back of my mind. After we were airborne, she told me that the plane had to be back in Dayton for an early morning departure and the arrival agent had done me a big favor by holding the flight. Finally, nothing to worry about.
It turned out to be the best flight ever. It was a beautiful night north of the storms and I got home earlier than my original schedule. I relate that experience because the seeds of this article, as well as an important lesson about faith, were planted in my mind that night. After having one of the worst weeks in quite a while, I was gifted with peace and rest when I least expected it and needed it most. That same scenario has happened many times since then, but the difference now is that when things get rough, the faith of that memory keeps alive my hope for the peace and rest that is bound to come. At least I try to do that. But as I’ve said before in these articles – it’s often easier said than done.
Faith is a deeply personal experience that transcends logic and reason. For a Christian, it is the belief in the existence of the creator God, as well as a belief that His principles as revealed in the bible give meaning and purpose to life. Faith is also the power that causes us to crave truth, love, justice, and to believe in the potential of our dreams and aspirations. However, faith is not without its challenges. It can sometimes be plagued by doubt, fear, and moments of crisis. Dealing rightly with these struggles can bring us closer to God and deepen our faith. The wrong reaction can potentially damage our faith, sometimes critically. The key, at least for me, is to know the enemies of faith and deal with them immediately as soon as they arise.
One enemy of faith is what I like to call the middle ground. In order to explain this, we need to take a brief look at the three-part anatomy of life’s problems. The first part is when the problem hits us. We realize what has happened or is about to happen. Strangely enough this is not the hardest part in which to have faith. We can pray, claim our trust in God and his plan, and then brace up to deal with whatever it is that we are about to face. That usually works pretty well. For a while. The last part of the problem is also a relatively easy time to have faith. For better or worse, we thank God that the problem is almost behind us, we can see what lies ahead and begin to understand the path forward. The hard part is that middle ground between the first part and the last part.
The middle ground is where we get impatient. The middle ground is where we commit malpractice with our imaginations and begin to really worry. It’s where our minds, often with the devil’s help, demand the right to rationalize all manner of things. We begin to look at all of our options, and what we might do in order to influence the outcome. We calculate the best- and worst-case scenarios. It's in the middle ground where we might even do something that we later come to regret. It is the hardest place for us to sustain our trust in God and remember all that he has done before in our lives. The middle ground of a problem is one enemy of our faith. It's also where every battle is won or lost, be it spiritual warfare or armed conflict.
Another, similar enemy of faith is the fear of trust. Trust risks pain. Human nature tends to avoid anything that might betray the expectations of our trust. Sometimes, even the perception of betrayal will spontaneously trigger rejection before we even understand the circumstances. Worse yet, those who pander to the social conflicts of our day willingly exploit this fear to try to make us believe that trust is foolish, betrayal is rampant and that if “they” haven’t betrayed us yet, “they” will - unless we reject them before they do. I have struggled with this. For most of my life I lived by the old cliché “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
I fight that impulse now by remembering a few words from my favorite Crowder song: “All my hope is in Jesus, thank God that yesterday's gone.” When we focus our trust on Him first and foremost, the fear of trusting others will die of natural causes. And it also helps us through that middle ground of a problem. So, how can we conquer those two and the many other enemies of our faith? Adopting a verse of scripture or part of a worship song can be an effective tool. But it needs to be easy to remember in a moment of crisis and you need to believe in what it means. I have a very simple tactic that I would like to offer. It’s called a watchword.
When most of us hear the word splashdown we don't think about faith. I'd like to give you a different way to think about a splashdown, from a famous story you probably know. A roughhewn, impetuous fisherman stepped out of his boat and began to walk across the surface of the water. Initially he was overjoyed at his miraculous accomplishment but after a few seconds he began to worry about the wind and look at the waves and splash! – down he went. We know that he didn't sink very far because Jesus reached out and lifted him back up immediately. I picture the loving Savior of the world laughing out loud and saying “Peter, Peter, you were doing so well! If you just hadn't taken your eyes off me.”
In my heart, I’ve have heard Him say basically the same thing to me so many times, when He’s pulled me up out of and through a trial after I had lost faith and suffered needless anxiety as a result. Like Peter, I think we’ve all suffered our share of splashdowns. Collectively, we could tell a thousand different stories about what caused us to hit the water but deep down the main reason for every splashdown of faith would be the same. We forget who we belong to and we let the eyes of our heart wander off of Him.
My hope is that you might take away a new meaning for the simple phrase “splashdown” and use it as a watchword. When you feel the enemies of your faith approaching, stop and imagine that water under your feet, then remember to say, “Lord, I know you’ve got me, please don’t let me splashdown.” Remember that simply asking is the first step to receiving many things – including some of God’s greatest blessings in life, like unwavering faith. The hardest part about claiming the blessings God promises us is believing and understanding that we please Him by asking, even if we ask every day or every hour.
Is all this stuff biblical?
Don't take my word for it. The apostle Paul praised the early churches that would listen to his message and then go search the scriptures to see if what he was saying was founded in biblical truth. He urges us to do likewise. Here are links to a wealth of resources from the bible and other references related to this topic.
Faith Verses at Open Bible| Truth for Life | Crosswalk | Tabletalk Magazine | Gather Ministries | C. H. Spurgeon| Charles Stanley | R.C. Sproul | Greg Laurie
Wondering what the “Acts” collection is all about?
Here is a link to the introduction to the Acts collection of articles. - Click here to read.
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