I was on the plane heading to Tel Aviv and sitting next to this guy. He was an older man, and I found out he used to be a teacher. I have a lot of respect for teachers. They are really smart. He was also a secular Jew. He would have called himself an atheist, had the word not had such a negative connotation. Nobody likes a negative label. It’s like having an icky old sticker on your shirt.

This airplane was super fancy and had screens on the back. You could watch movies and play games on it and all that.

I’m always pretty paranoid, or maybe I should say alert, on a plane, because I can either just keep to myself and play these games, or I can meet a cool new person who is loved by God. But I was tired, and the plane was being loud, so I decided to play Sudoku on this screen.

The man next to me was a master at Solitaire. At first, while I was playing, I assumed he had figured out all the numbers before me. But when I asked him if he had ever played Sudoku, he just said, “I’ve heard of it.”

“Is it just guesswork?” he asked.

“Well, no,” I said. “You can take notes as you eliminate possibilities, but
I don’t write in a number until I’m confident it’s the right one.”

Yesterday I went to a class called The Truth Project. We sit around and watch episodes of another really smart teacher who talks about truth, and why it matters.

In the first episode, he also talks about faith.

“I don’t understand the phrase, ‘people of faith,’ he said. People of faith?
Faith in what?
Faith in faith?” 

He had a point. Having faith in faith is like having a dream about a dream. You can have a dream in a dream (e.g. the whole movie Inception), but there is still substance to the dream inside the dream.

Or betting on a bet.
“I’ll bet you fifty bucks.”
On what?

Betting on a bet? They won’t let you do that in Vegas. You bet on a specific number, outcome, or the like.

You have to have faith in something. Whether it’s God, or Allah, or yourself, you’re still putting your chips on someone.

Anyways. In this course the teacher then showed a video of a boy jumping off a diving board, into his mother’s arms. They were trying to illustrate what Jesus calls “faith like a child.”

We tend to think of faith as this touchy-feely abstract thing that makes us all feel happy and fuzzy for no specific reason. I hate it.

Describing faith that way is like describing the ground as puffy and bouncy and white. Lots of people also think Heaven is a bunch of clouds. I doubt that. No one in the Bible ever says Heaven is made of clouds. And no one in the Bible ever really enjoys having faith, come to think of it. It’s really hard.

Back to the boy on the diving board. He doesn’t want to jump. Heck no. His emotions would be much fuzzier if he could sit on the side and splash his feet.

His faith comes from his knowledge, his being convinced, that his mom is going to catch him, and all will be well, and he’ll be the better for acting contrary to his emotions. And his  mind, which is probably following his emotional fears and pain, is probably also gathering support for his conclusion that his mom
is not
really
who he knows her to be.

If a fragile, inexperienced boy can trust in an imperfect person
and come out on top,
then if we are really convinced that God is trustworthy,
how much easier should it be?

And if God is greater than humans,
how much victory am I missing out on
when I shrink back.

Faith
like a child.

Bolder
and more sound than most of the mantras we tell ourselves to
guess
at where we should step or stay.

Faith is not emotionally-driven.
Even the mind can be deluded into irrational doubt.
But ultimately, faith is driven by knowledge.
Confidence.
Logic.

Like Sudoku.

“I won’t write down a number until I am confident it’s the right one.”

The idea of faith keeps a lot of people going in life. It reminds me of when Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Road Runner and runs off a cliff. It’s fine until he realizes there is nothing to stand on.

I would say it’s fine to have faith in faith, you know, if that makes you happy or whatever.
I would say it’s fine…
if I knew the faith itself put ground under you.
But the truth is, it doesn’t.

And I love you too much to leave you hanging

 

 

So are you on a cliff?
Are you writing in your guesses on your Sudoku
without finishing the puzzle?

As a Christian, I could tell you to just blindly “trust in Jesus,” whatever that means, so you can go to Heaven, which you think is a land of clouds.

But I’d rather ask you to finish the puzzle. Pick up the soil you’re on to see if it is real.
Don’t put down a number until you’re certain. But don’t doubt so much that you
believe
the puzzle cannot be solved.

Don’t shrink back from that water
unless
you’re certain that the person in it
does not have a love
that’s big enough to hold you above the water.

And don’t jump into that pool
until
you know exactly whose arms
are waiting to catch you.

 

“Now
faith is
confidence
in what we hope for
and
assurance
about what we do not see.”

~The author of To The Hebrews,
ca. AD 63