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Last Sunday, I was in the hallway between services greeting people. A familiar family was coming toward me. As they approached, I made eye contact with the husband/father. Words left me, but he seemed to know exactly what I was feeling. He spoke seemingly for both of us when he said, “I can’t wait for basketball season.” What a terrible thing for a Tennessee fan to say on the first Sunday after the start of the college football season. Yet, if I am honest, I have to say that his words struck a chord with me, albeit a painful one.
I remember all the times we lost to those Steve Spurrier-coached Florida teams, but I also remember losing to a Steve Spurrier-coached Duke team. Yes, Duke beat our beloved Vols in 1982. We finished that year with a loss to Vandy. Two years later, we tied Army and two years after that, they beat us outright. Two years later, Duke was back in town to lay another whompin’ on us.
Even though there are perhaps good reasons to be disheartened and doubtful, we would like to be optimistic and hopeful at the beginning of any new endeavor. A new football season in East Tennessee football certainly falls into that category. Shouldn’t we have some faith, especially this early in the season?
Some of us take our football a little more seriously than others. Many of us enjoy following our teams; but we understand that when all is said and done, football is just a game. Forgive me if you think I blasphemed against the natural order of the universe by making that statement.
What if we were not talking about a game, but we were talking about God and the life God has called us to — a life full of real challenges, real difficulties and brings with it plenty of reasons to be disheartened and discouraged. Do you ever find yourself at a place where you have doubts about God and His concern and care for you?
If you have, you are not alone. We all struggle from time to time with issues of faith, and we grapple for a sense of direction and purpose. I recently read some excerpts from Mother Teresa’s soon to be published letters where she revealed her own doubts. She writes, “...If there be God — please forgive me — when I try to raise my thoughts to heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that these very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul…. I am told God loves me and yet the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”
While it may be odd or even shocking to a devout and dedicated servant of God to reveal such struggles, it is also refreshingly honest. So much of what passes for Christianity in our world today is the easy-to-swallow, candy-coated and always-polished variety. To hear one who was so faithful to God in her daily walk express openly the pain and uncertainty that a life of faith sometimes brings with it may disturb our concept of faith; or we may find our faith being strengthened.
Too often we equate faith with absolute certainty, which is not the case at all. Absolute certainty is a close relative of arrogance. Both of them are closer to fanaticism than they are to faith. No, ultimately faith is a choice. It is a matter of being able to look at all that life brings our way, the good and the bad, in a realistic way, and still choose faith.
In our walk with the Lord, there will always be days — maybe even weeks — that we are happy to see end because they have not been good days for us. Events will occur and situations will arise in our lives that may create doubts and uncertainties for us. What God asks of us each day is not that we be sure or certain, but that we would be obedient. The amazing thing about Mother Teresa’s letters is that they show us that one of history’s most striking examples of a life lived in daily obedience to God was at the same time a life that struggled with doubt and uncertainty.
Mother Teresa gave her all every day, she did not quit, she did not falter. No matter how many sick people she helped, or orphaned children she cared for, there always seemed to be more sick people, more poor people, more orphaned children, more need perhaps than there was the day before. Who could keep from despair. Yet, she got up each day and did what she knew to do for God and God’s children.
That is faith.
Joy and peace,
Ed
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