Tag Archives: transformation

A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit

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Faith & Surrender | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

 

One of the gifts of aging is the wisdom that comes with increasing awareness of life’s challenges and our limitations. When I was younger, if I was worried about any sense of my weakness or failure, then my defense was often to deny the truth. I was determined to do whatever I could to hide my shame from myself as well as others. I dreaded displeasing both Mom and Dad for different reasons. Growing up, I learned that making mistakes, losing and failure was to be avoided at all costs. Looking good and maintaining the approval of others were high values in my family.

 

Size and weight were also sensitive issues in the Blue household. My dad was a big guy and definitely lost his fight with excessive consumption of food and alcohol. My mom, however, was very conscious of her weight and appearance. Looking good was a top priority for her and she too battled with her own insecurities. It was no accident that I became excessively concerned with the opinion of others along with an unwillingness to love and accept myself. From as early as I can remember, I struggled with a distorted body image. No matter what I weighed or how I looked, I was never able to enjoy and accept myself.

 

Historically, compulsive overeating was the area in my life where my sense of powerlessness most often threatened to break into consciousness. Although I was very disciplined in many areas of my life, I continued to lose the fight with food. How many more diets would I try? How many more excuses would I make for not losing weight? How many more medical professionals would I enlist to help me eliminate my defects of character?

 

At the age of 60, I hit bottom. After years of others trying to support me, I finally conceded my powerlessness over food and the unmanageability of my life. I began attending Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and participated in an inpatient program for compulsive overeating. I learned that my problem was not a lack of self-control. I had demonstrated that I could lose weight (having lost 40 pounds at least six times in my life). My powerlessness over food manifested itself less with losing weight and more with my inability to keep the weight off.

 

When I started working a 12 Step Program, I was quickly confronted with the concept of surrender. I had a strong reaction to the word especially given my programming to never give in or admit defeat. The invitation to surrender to my Higher Power was very threatening. I mistakenly thought I had a head start in the spiritual dimension of the 12 Steps. I learned, however, that I did not believe that God would be sympathetic toward my powerlessness over food. It still sounded to me like a weak excuse. I could see powerlessness over an addiction to heroin or cocaine, but food? The message in my head was, “Suck it up. Quit feeling sorry for yourself!”

 

I mistakenly believed that my powerlessness with food was simply a character defect rather than an addiction. At some level, I believed that I deserved to be punished.  I did not believe that God cared about my overeating and would be willing to help. Weren’t there many more serious problems in the world? I still wanted to believe it was my problem and mine alone to deal with. If that were so, then I wouldn’t have to face my powerlessness. How could I ask for help when it was my responsibility to do something about it?

 

My progressive failure with compulsive overeating eventually broke me. I finally surrendered by the grace of God. I threw in the towel and raised the white flag.  For the first time, I was able to see that a life of faith begins with accepting what is so. I was a compulsive overeater and I was not able to solve this problem on my own. I needed help. This is the power of surrender. It begins with choosing to accept what is true about me and my circumstances. Surrender leads to freedom. For the first time, I was willing, to tell the truth about my inability to control my overeating.

 

Living by faith, I learned, is empowered when I acknowledge my powerlessness and inability to manage my own life. Freedom comes when I admit I can’t do it and celebrate the truth that God can. The apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”[1]  Being a person of faith begins with being yourself. It involves choosing to stop managing and manipulating an image in order to look better than one actually is.

 

As pilgrims of faith, we embrace our shortcomings, failure, and addictions. We humbly acknowledge that we are insufficient. Our power and effectiveness are the results of exercising our faith in God, who is willing and able to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. In the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous, we are those who seek progress, not perfection. The pursuit of perfection leads to membership in the cult of narcissism. Surrender is the pathway to a relationship of faith and hope in God.

[1]Philippians 4:13

A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit

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Trust: The Foundation of Faith | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

Trust is like breath to life.  It is foundational to how we view ourselves, others and God. Trust is vital in the process of authoring our sense of safety, belonging, meaning, and purpose. Trust is like a muscle that expands when exercised and atrophies through lack of use. Trust is not a gift. It is a choice. It is our responsibility to cultivate our capacity to trust. The path of transformation is lined with repeated choices to trust and take the next right step in our quest for wholeness.

We exercise trust all the time. I trust that a chair will hold me, that my car will start, that my phone will work. Relationships are built or broken based on trust. I trust that you will see me, accept me, tell me the truth, value me, and forgive me. Whenever something we trust does not go as expected, we experience a breach of trust. This breach often triggers a sense of panic and the release of many painful emotions including fear, anger, hurt and sadness.

Faith is the artery of our relationship with God. Trust is a key component of faith that empowers individuals to make sense of and face the unknown. People of faith continuously exercise trust and as a result, mature into their next level of development. Faith comes from the Latin, fidere, to trust. It is defined as confidence, reliance, and belief, especially without evidence or proof.

The development of trust is critical to a life of faith. If as children we learn that we cannot trust those we depend on, then, as adults we will live in a lasting state of fear and anxiety. Early childhood breaches of trust undermine children’s facility to live rich and rewarding lives.                        Individuals traumatized in childhood will often be unwilling to take the risks necessary to develop and mature into self-actualized adults.

Continually choosing to trust is one of the basic workouts in a life of faith. To enhance our development of trust, we seek out those who will encourage us to explore and experiment with new things.  The courage to step out into the unknown and repeatedly take risks promotes the development of faith. The challenges associated with a life of faith include risking failing, getting hurt, facing disappointment, experiencing rejection, and venturing into the unknown. Authentic faith thrives in an environment of risk, mystery, and uncertainty.

Religious people are often more concerned about avoiding sin than learning how to walk by faith. Moralism along with its bedfellow perfectionism is poisonous to the emergence of faith. Faith fails to grow in a culture of fear and performance. Moralism leads to the diminishing of our lives because we become increasingly unwilling to try anything that might lead to making mistakes or getting in trouble.  Living with the mistaken belief that my worth or belonging is contingent upon my performance promotes a “works oriented” mindset. My worth, value, and acceptance depend too much on looking good and fitting in..

Living a life of faith in which we risk trusting is the path to the abundant life that Jesus spoke of[1]. Every moment is an opportunity for us to learn, grow, and become more of who we can be. We are not growing as we could if we are not taking risks and occasionally falling short. Without risking failure, we are not stretching into our potential of who we are capable of becoming. I believe we have been entrusted with gifts that will only come to maturity through our willingness to risk living with and learning from our mistakes.

[1]John 10:10

Faith and Feelings

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A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit
A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

Feelings are the language of our hearts. Feelings remind me of my humanity. They point me to what I yearn for. We find comfort in reading the Psalms because they are songs of our souls replete with heartfelt expressions of feelings regarding what matters most to us. Feeling and expressing our feelings is a vital part of living life abundantly. Jesus was a feeling filled human being who passionately manifested his pain as well as his joy through the expression of his feelings. He rejoiced, celebrated, felt angry, grieved, and even bled in the expression of his feelings. Feelings stand on their own side by side with our thoughts on our pilgrimage of faith.

Historically, the church has not always championed feelings. In fact, in my early days of being a Christian, there was significant controversy regarding the role of faith and feelings. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru), made famous the Train Diagram found in the Four Spiritual Laws (a popular evangelistic tool). According to Bright, the train diagram summarized the ABC’s of the Christian life. It was a train with three cars. The first was the engine, “Fact”, the second was the coal car, “Faith”, and the caboose, “Feelings.” Bright explained that the Christian life was built on faith in the certainty of God’s Word. According to Bill, the train could run with or without the caboose, feelings.

Diminishing feelings made sense to me as a young man because I did not trust my feelings. As a new believer in Christ, I feared that they seemed to be in conflict with the teachings of Scripture. My dichotomous mind mistakenly believed that my feelings, unlike my rational mind, were subjective and unreliable. My feelings were not objective truth nor a fruit of the Spirit (unless of course, they were joyful). I associated feelings with urges and thought that mastery over my emotions made more sense if I was going to be a faithful follower of Christ. I believed my mind was more trustworthy than my heart.

How often do we confuse thoughts with feelings? Routinely, I hear people say, “I don’t feel like God loves me” or “I don’t feel that God has a plan for my life” or “I don’t feel forgiven.” Except for the word “feel”, these are not feelings. These are internal judgments—self-talk based on mistaken core beliefs about ourselves, others and God. When we listen to these accusations we are sure to generate a host of painful feelings. This is the dynamic of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, many of our most painful feelings are in response to our own critical thoughts.

Feelings are not indictments or signs of weakness. Instead, they are our heart responses to our thoughts and experiences. We are created in the image of God and feelings represent an important component of our personal truth. Our hearts are intended to be in partnership with our heads. Feelings are an important and dynamic aspect of the life of faith. Feelings are connectors. They allow us to empathize and identify with one another. They are what powerfully unite us with ourselves, each other, and God. Feelings lead us to our deepest yearnings—to love and be loved, belong, matter, and make a difference, to mention a few.  The scriptures record that Abraham, David, Mary, and Jesus all freely expressed feelings as they experienced their journey of faith.

Frequently, I find myself using thoughts to mask my feelings. I try and “think” my way through my feelings, especially when I am trying to avoid acknowledging my hurt, pain, and sense of powerlessness. Feeling our feelings demands faith. Oftentimes, I do not have the courage to face my sadness, fear, hurt and anger. It takes the fortitude of faith to choose to consciously embrace my pain and suffering as Jesus did throughout his life. Without my feelings, it is easier to numb out and avoid the truth of what I am experiencing at the moment. Jesus boldly experienced his feelings and prayed for the strength to embrace his pain as well as his joy.

A Fresh Look at Faith

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A FRESH LOOK AT FAITH | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

I see faith as an essential component of both human and spiritual development. Faith is the muscle that when exercised, empowers individuals to make sense of and face the unknown, exercise trust, and mature into their next level of human and spiritual development. Faith comes from the Latin, fidere, to trust. It is defined as confidence, reliance, and belief, especially without evidence or proof.

How often have we heard things like, “trust God,” “have faith,” or “just believe”? Yet these statements “paper over” the challenges of faith and trust. They suggest we should trust mindlessly, without question, rather than grapple directly with the difficulties we have in holding onto faith. Faith is confused with conformity and seen as a measure of devotion.

My perspectives on faith came to focus through my doctoral research on the role of faith in human and spiritual development. This research was one of the most meaningful and demanding experiences of my life. I went into this research regarding myself as a man of faith. But what I saw was that most the significant obstacle to my study of faith was me. I was afraid to question what I already believed to be true. I was scared to trust truth and afraid to trust God, the source of truth.  It took me a long time to see that holding on too tightly to what I thought was true was not actually faith, but its opposite.

It took faith for me to fight for the opportunity to study faith. Once I had gotten approval for my research, I found myself anticipating imaginary attacks on what I believed at every turn. The greatest threats, however, came from my own lack of faith. I began to see how resistant I was to reexamining everything I believed. My classmates can attest to the countless conflicts I created because I was trying to sound smart, be right, and have everything figured out. At the time, I was much more interested in having all the answers than I was in in asking questions and being in the unknown.

I recall an especially tense moment when the frustration level reached a crescendo. My biggest advocate, the chair of my doctoral committee. was tired of fighting with me regarding my latest theory on faith. He was threatening to pull the plug on my dissertation topic. I was frustrating everyone, including myself, by continually trying to have the answers and get everything right. Ironically, I was trying to figure out faith!

To be more open to what was possible, I needed to expose and dismantle two central silos—spirituality and psychology. I had strongly clung to the notion that spirituality and science were independent fields of study. I mistakenly believed that faith was the exclusive concern of the spiritual silo. I projected that psychology and academia were hostile to faith and a threat to what I valued. I was falling prey to dichotomous thinking—seeing the world as black or white, right or wrong, and characterized by all or nothing thinking. This type of thinking is what mystics refer to as the dualistic mind. I was discovering that the dichotomous thinking of the dualistic mind is hostile to faith.

What I came to see is that faith is more a verb than a noun. Faith is not so much what we believe in, such as our creeds and doctrines. Faith involves the courage to live with not-knowing. Faith is a divine muscle given to inspire and empower our spiritual transformation. Faith is a core yearning longing to be fulfilled. It is active, not static. Faith is a gift we have been given that only grows when it is exercised and stretched.

Please join me in this fresh look at faith. Watch for my next blog on Outoftheblueblog.us

Living in Relationship: Consciously Caring for One Another

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The older I get the more important relationships are to me. When I was younger, I took many of my relationships for granted. I assumed that others would always be there for me. I also presumed my relationship with God was a constant—He was always there and what I did or did not do mattered very little.  At least that’s what I thought.

As I have grown, I have come to see, along with A.W. Tozer, that what I believe about God and my relationship with him is the most important thing about me. Surprised by God: A Journey of Divine Discovery is a story about how my relationship with God has transformed and evolved over the course of my life. The way I see it, very few things are as important as dedicating ourselves to being lifelong learners and seekers of truth in God. Please read and reflect on this excerpt from the Introduction to Surprised by God about the importance of relationships.

Although I had grown up attending church, and always believed in God, it was not until I was in my teens that I saw the possibility of having 
a personal relationship with Him. But, even then, it was a limited vision. I thought God was most interested in me knowing Scripture, obeying His teaching, and having the right answers.

Over time, I have trans
formed from a Word-based Christian to a faith and 
relationship-based follower of Christ. I have discovered that insight alone is not sufficient for sustaining our lives and our faith. We need our hearts—our emotions—in order to engage more fully in life. Like any relationship, it is emotions and ideas that connect us.

With Christ, I came to realize that deepening my relationship required emotional expression—not the pretty, sanctimonious kind but real, raw, personal expression and sensing. Genuine emotional experience is critical to our fullest relationship with God.

The power of the relationship is in the persistence on the journey and the discovery, not the knowing: trying, failing, striving, reaching, falling back, and trying again—what I call grappling with God.file3871249263445

As a boy who loved rough sports, especially wrestling, I experienced the visceral joy of physical battle, the toughness of an opponent and what it took to overcome him. During my journey of faith, I have come to see a relationship with God and Christ as an ongoing battle with myself in my relationship to God. It’s a battle to be the real me and express the real me, all of me, in relationship with Him.

As I have grappled with that kind of authentic expression of, and honesty with, myself I have deepened my faith and my understanding of the divine. This journey has taken me far beyond what I thought was possible within my own life and has brought me a maturity and intimacy in my relationship with God, as I have grown more honest and intimate with the people I care about in my life.

It can do the same for you.

 

 

This Hallowed Place

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This past weekend, the CLE community enjoyed another sacred weekend we call Spring Retreat. We had our largest gathering ever, stretching the limits of our beloved DeKoven Center in Racine, WI. The time was especially meaningful because Eileen Parks (I am using her real name with permission), one of my original clients, joined us to celebrate her husband, Jon, who died three weeks earlier. She testified to Jon’s undying love for God, for people, and for the work of personal transformation–the theme of our weekend.

6012450701_dd9cf2b7d6_oDeKoven was one of Jon’s favorite places. It was a space that became sacred for him. Jon represented the best of what we like to refer to as the DNA of CLE. Jon loved life and wanted to enjoy every moment passionately with anyone willing to learn, grow, and walk with him. Jon loved people and people loved Jon. He had an insatiable urge to share his feelings in the moment. He loved supporting anyone to heal, express their feelings, choose to live the biggest life possible, serve anyone in need, and love God with all their heart.

Eileen shared another one of Jon’s poems, written in February of 1995. Evidently, he wrote this poem following attending his first CLE retreat. May his words give you a vision for the life changing experiences we have on these weekends together.

 

Change

Jon Parks

(First CLE Retreat, February 1995)

This Holy Place will ever shine

Within my heart

Like summer fields drenched deep

In sunlight’s green beams.

Tis perfect place in time,

Where well-worn masks were gently set aside,

And hearts displayed in view for all to see.

This Hallowed Place,

Where humanness touched timelessness,

A glimpse caught of a sweet eternity.

And you O God are all of us,

Warrior, healer, visionary, teacher

And this one thing I know,

That we who shard this sacred place

Have touched eternity,

Our image made in you.

For this beauty and this miracle of

Life, to know and to be fully known,

The cry of every heart,

To Dance and sing and dance again,

Where dancing never ends,

To feel the deepest feelings,

To taste of life itself and find

one day, our hands outstretched to

touch the face of God.

I saw a person standing there, so filled

With pain and misery,

I longed to hold them to my breast,

To comfort them with love.

And then as I grew closer still,

I was amazed to see,

That this poor wounded aching heart

was my best friend called me.

My Commencement Speech!

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For those of you who were not able to be there in person, I wanted to share with you the excitement and joy that I felt while delivering one of the commencement speeches at the graduation ceremony in which I received my second master’s degree from the Wright Graduate Institute.  It was a great honor to be asked to speak, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to further share my journey, my vulnerability, and my faith!  I hope you will take a look leave me a comment or two letting me know what you think.

~Rich

 

 

My Celebration of Mollie Mae Blue

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It has been three years since my dad died. My mom and dad were married for more than 70 years. She has spent the last several years grieving, adjusting to living alone, and living her life to the fullest.

 

Several months ago I received a call from my brother saying that mom was very sick. I called her and knew the minute I heard her voice that she was struggling. Normally invincible, she was experiencing a lot of swelling in her legs, pain all over, and almost no energy. She said her heart was tired and that she was ready die. I will never forget the shockingly forthright and open conversation we had about dying. I was in shock and not on board with her decision yet.

Her condition improved; however, it was apparent that she was nearing the end of this life. Sue and I quickly planned a trip out to see her but it would not be until the end of August—four weeks away. My mom told me that she could not guarantee living that long. I began negotiating with her the terms of her last days. Eventually she agreed that she would intend to live and not die before seeing Sue and me again.

 

How many people are so blessed to have this kind of conversation with their 95-year-old mom? I was filled with inspiration at her recognition of her power. She understood the power of intention and the complexity of death—in some ways it is outside of our control and in other ways we have been given a lot of say-so. Her focus for the month of August was recovering and living until we visited. We talked several times a day and I was monitoring her condition. With every day she gained hope, strength, and aliveness.

 

She not only lived until our visit, she thrived. Her doctor determined what was wrong (Polymyalgia Rheumatica) and the medication she received helped her renew her strength. By the time we saw her she was zipping about the house exuding energy and joy. Somehow, I knew she would do it. Seeing her was such a blessing; however, it was not long before I was bugging her and she was trying to reign me in. Some things never change.

 

My greatest memory of our visit was when my mom told me that she had something to talk with me about. Historically, I had been the one to initiate these kind of heart-to-heart conversations. She told me that she had been praying for the opportunity to share her concerns about my expression of anger. I couldn’t believe it.  I was both shocked and thrilled. To use CLE lingo, she wanted to “clear” with me.

 

She shared with me her concerns and I listened. I shared my perspectives and she listened. The intensity of the conversation grew, as did the aliveness. I was noticing that we were having a respectful and responsible fight.  There was no room for this kind of discussion in our home growing up. I was ecstatic.

 

Suddenly my fear surfaced. What if she died while we were fighting? I saw the scary masks of guilt and shame trying to divert me from the joy and aliveness of the moment. On the contrary, what better way to die than to be truthfully and passionately engaging with one another in the pursuit of intimacy? When we were finished (2 hours seemed like 2 minutes) my mom and I were radiant and energized. I was inspired and filled with joy and gratitude. What a testament to the work we have done to repair and deepen our relationship over the past 25 years. Thank God for my anger!

 

 

Mollie Mae Blue was born on October 16, 1916 in Chicago. (You do the math; this will diminish her upset with me for revealing her age.) 1916 was the year the light switch was invented and the Chicago Cubs won their first game in Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field) against the Cincinnati Reds. Mollie Mae was born during World War I (1914-1918), which resulted in the death of more than 9 million combatants. Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeated Republican Charles E. Hughes.

 

Mollie and I are continuing daily to enjoy our honest, alive and feeling-filled conversations. I am a blessed son and man.

God’s Infinite Love: My Choice by A.M.

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When I first joined assignment group, a senior member of my group told me that no matter what happens in the group, to remember that Rich was always for me 100%.  I learned over time that this was true and that despite whatever happened in group, Rich always had my back.  Even though I was messed up and full of it, Rich still believed in me, supported me, and loved me.  Later I came to learn that this was love and positive regard.

This love was a stark contrast to anything that I had experienced for the first 40 years of my life.  My Dad was anything but loving.  He was a volatile and punitive man and his “love” was conditional.  He was harsh, abusive, and selfish.  I truly feared my father for the first 40+ years of my life.  I see now that he was just trying to get his own needs met, and that he himself had grown up with a harsh and unloving father.

I viewed God as an extension of my father.  I saw him as harsh, mean, petty and unloving.  This was a choice that I made and it colored all of my core beliefs about the world. That took me right up until 2004 or so when I accepted Christ as my savior.  In fact, it took me beyond that.

In 2004, I went on a CLE retreat and experienced Rich’s love in a breath work  exercise.  The next week in church at WCNS, they did an altar call and one of my group members from the retreat joined me as I went forward from my seat.  Shortly after that I was baptized.  It was at that point that I accepted Christ, and my relationship with God began to change.  I began to read the bible and talk more with people about God. And ultimately the door opened for me to change the way I thought about God.

Even after those experiences, I still believed deep down that God was unloving, mean, and punishing.  It is only recently, many years later, that my core beliefs about God have changed.  And I know it has changed because my world view has changed, rather, I have chosen to have another world view and that is only possible because my core belief about God has changed.

It all goes back to Rich and his uncommon love and positive regard for me.  It had been a big leap of faith to accept this as love after what I experienced with my own Father.  I wasn’t always great about taking it in, but when I did, it had a profound impact on me.  I gradually began to love myself.  And I gradually began to accept the possibility that God loved me the same way Rich did, and more.

This all came to a head this summer on a trip to a Willow Creek Camp.  During my daily quiet time with God, I came to see that I did not act in ways that showed that I believed in and trusted a loving God.  I acted as if the world was a place of fear, pain, and scarcity, rather than a playground of abundance and possibilities.  I played it safe, and had a relatively small life as a result.

I had a choice to make.  I could continue to see the world as i always had, or I could see the world through the eyes of a loving and kind heavenly Father.  My experience with Rich in assignment group and on retreats was the means by which I was able to change how I viewed God.  A great verse from the Bible is:

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
(Luke 11:11-13 NIV)

When I compared my Dad to Rich, and then extrapolated Rich to God my heavenly Father, I realized that I had underestimated God’s love for me by an infinite amount.  More importantly, I saw that my belief about God’s love and goodness is a faith choice. I can choose to see God as loving and kind and the world as full of opportunities and abundance.  Or I can continue to believe as I always have. This is really a question of faith, since there is plenty of evidence for both.

I have decided to trust God and to and to believe that God is for me 100% (or more!)  I believe that God loves me, and will provide for me, and that the world is a place of promise, of opportunity, and of abundance.

My work is to act out that faith every day.  I need to live a big life, and take appropriate risks.  I need to see a loving God at work in the world, in everything that happens to me, and to see it all as for my good.  It is a choice that I must continue to make every day.

Growing and Faith

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Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

I am concerned about the ever-present temptation to move away from truly living by faith.

Growing involves the willingness to learn, fail and learn again. Growing is about continually striving and never arriving. Jesus’ disciples quickly learned that faith was central to everything that mattered to Him. When the disciples asked Jesus about how they could have more faith, he suggested to them that faith was not about quantity as if they needed more of it. He told them that if they had the faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains. Faith is unquantifiable. Faith is a muscle—it is a way of being and relating to another. The heart of faith is about who we place our faith in.

Dynamic faith is about relationship. It is connected to the relationship I have with the person I am putting my faith in. Faith is central to growing and deepening our relationship with the transcendent God. The author of the book of Hebrews writes, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) Faith is intangible and yet vital to spiritual growth.

By nature, I am opposed to living by faith. I prefer certainty over mystery and mastery over learning. I feel driven to understand faith and have it make sense. I love to learn—sort of; however, one of my temptations is to believe I understand more than I do. I forget that learning and growing is really about what we don’t know. Learning requires the courage to stretch into the unknown. It is more interested in pursuing the unknown than resting in the known. Carol Dweck in her book, Mindset, refers to the growth vs. the fixed mindset. The fixed mindset is all about figuring things out. The growth mindset focuses on learning, stretching and growing. We must be willing to err and fail if we are going to meaningfully learn and grow.

All of my adult life I have been seeking and studying faith. I am in the process of publishing my first book, Grappling with God, and it is concerned with growth and the role of faith. I am discovering that just when I think I have faith figured out I fall flat on my face—faith down. I am learning that authentic faith is about not knowing. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is about an experience. The Bible speaks of faith being and encounter with God. It is pursuing relationship with the Transcendent Other in the face of uncertainty and not-knowing.

As I write this sentence, I notice my desire to be more precise and certain about what faith is and isn’t. How can I be writing an article about faith and not be certain of what I am saying? Maybe my lack of certainty is the very quality that allows me to discuss such a sacred experience. I believe faith represents a drive, a human potentiality, within all people that seeks actualization. Man is moved toward faith by an inner awareness of the Transcendent to which he senses his connection. It is this connection that we all seek—an encounter with the holy and mysterious Other. Our hearts seek an experience with unconditional love. Paul Tillich writes, “The unconditional concern which is faith is the concern about the unconditional. The infinite passion, as faith has been described, is the passion for the infinite.” (Tillich, 1957)

Tillich, P. (1957). The Dynamics of Faith. New York: Perennial Classics.