Faith is Spelled R-I-S-K
Listen: “Oceans” (Live at RELEVANT)
One of my mentors in pastoral ministry (John Wimber) was known for his many axioms of wisdom. Several of them have stuck in my head through the years, and I have repeated them many times. “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K” is one of them.
Faith is one of those words that gets used in many contexts with ten different nuances. It’s like the word “love” in its multivalent meanings. In the biblical worldview, faith is primarily a word for trust—trust in God—but also trust in others and trust in yourself to some degree. It can also be used to talk about a set of beliefs, like the Christian faith or the faith of our fathers.
My focus in this blog is on the relational aspect of faith—faith as trust. I think its important to establish what faith is not. Through thousands of hours of conversations with people about faith, I have found that many people have misconceptions about the nature of faith. So here’s a short list of what faith is not (from a biblical perspective at least, maybe intuitive as well): (1) Faith is not the absence of fear. Faith and fear dance together. (See my blog “Can We Dance with Fear?”); (2) Faith is not the absence of doubts and questions concerning what you believe. Almost every biblical character had doubts and questions concerning their faith, even Jesus; (3) Faith is not the absence of uncertainty. Most faith adventures have a strong possibility of failure; and (4) Faith is not a mystical force like gravity, but it does involve a relationship with God and people and self, all of whom can be very mysterious!
Because faith is a relational term for trust, faith can ebb and flow. Faith can be somewhat bipolar. There are times when we feel confident in our relationship with God, others, and self; and there are times when those relationships can feel shattered, broken, and in need of repair. For many people, faith rises and falls with a vacillating sense of confidence and trust in the current status of any particular relationship. You might have an unwavering sense of confidence and trust in God’s love and grace, but even the best examples of people of faith from every tradition (the heroes of faith or the saints that have gone before us) have had seasons of darkness in which their faith was weighed and found wanting.
Faith and love are risky endeavors. (See my blog “Is Unconditional Love Possible?”) Upon entering into a faith-filled relationship, we can always wonder if it will last. Fear of failure and fear of abandonment can accompany any love relationship. However, if we try to avoid fear of failure and abandonment, then we are, in essence, trying to avoid faith and love which leaves us alone and isolated.
The encouraging news is that faith can be incredibly small and still have an extraordinary affect on life and love. In one of Jesus’ most famous sayings on faith, he spoke of it in a fantastic way: “I tell you, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible” (Matthew 17:20; NLT). The mustard seed is one of the smallest of seeds. So encouraging!
For some, the first and obvious thing to trust is God. They have grown up trusting in God and in the God of their faith tradition. But this is not at all easy or obvious for many people. In the 21st Century, doubt is as common as faith in the most developed countries of the world.
Maybe the first thing to trust is what is real, even if it seems tragic and difficult. I love what Richard Rohr says in Falling Upward:
The tragic sense of life is ironically not tragic at all, at least in the Big Picture….The tragic sense of life is not unbelief, pessimism, fatalism, or cynicism. It is just ultimate and humiliating realism, which for some reason demands a lot of forgiveness of almost everything. Faith is simply to trust the real, and to trust that God is found within it—even before we change it. This is perhaps our major stumbling stone, the price we must pay to keep the human heart from closing down and to keep the soul open for something more.
This openness to “something more” is the key to faith and trust. In recovery, people talk of surrendering to a “higher power of your understanding.” This is a good place to start. You might start with the love and trust you have in your dog or your cat—that’s a source of profound love for most people. You have faith that your dog is going to love you all over again as soon as you return home. Or, you might put your faith in the joy you experience when you walk in the woods, or soak up the sun on a beach, or smell pine trees in the mountains.
Faith in yourself can be tricky, but it is necessary. Faith in the way your brain works, the way you experience and think about yourself and the world around you. Trust in your intuition and instincts is invaluable for navigating life’s journey. (Read Blink by Malcom Gladwell.) Trusting in yourself when your self-confidence and self-worth has been shattered can be extremely difficult, but it is absolutely necessary for healing and wholeness. Do you have enough self-compassion to believe in yourself?
Faith in a circle of friends and family is foundational to meaningful life and existence on the planet. All faith traditions and evolution itself would tell us that we are made for loving community. Isolation is dangerous for all species, plant and animal alike, especially humans. This is extremely challenging for survivors of relational trauma, but healing comes through grace-filled relationships. Do you have enough interdependence to believe in others?
Faith in God or something greater than yourself that is loving and caring is a big leap for some. I have met thousands of people through the years who have abandoned faith in God, a higher power, or organized religion because of religious trauma, religious dogma, or religious violence and hatred. Despite this aversion, we can all recognize the interconnectedness of all things in the universe. The butterfly effect seems to me to apply to more than just chaos theory. Do you have enough sense of mystery to believe in a power greater than yourself?
So faith is spelled R-I-S-K. When it comes to business and relationships and community and life, we must exercise faith—and there’s always a risk. Taking appropriate risks is vital to success in any arena of life. Risk management is a key ingredient to successful endeavors. I find great hope and comfort in the words of Basil King, a Canadian clergyman: “Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.”
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2021
