Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not rely on your own insight.
 In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
 It will be a healing for your flesh
    and a refreshment for your body. (Proverbs 3:5-8)

Recently – and it’s not the first time this has happened – a friend told me he wished he had faith like mine. So we talked about what our faith looks like, and we talked about the fact that for me doubt lives alongside belief, and that I am inconsistent, and that my faith is a constant journey and that I have ideas about God that change and sometimes contradict themselves.

We talked about it both with our heads and our hearts.

I have been thinking about this, and what I should say the next time this question surfaces. Maybe: “No, don’t wish you had a faith like mine, simply lean into the faith that is yours.” Because while we can learn from one another, and God is God regardless, we can’t have someone else’s faith we have to have our own.

We are all, essentially, one of a kind. This is how we are created, and the fact of it is pretty wonderful. So the only faith we can have is our own. Oh, I know what my friend was getting at; he meant that he values the way I hold onto my faith, the way faith animates me, the way I share faith and the confidence I have in it.

But the faith itself, it is as individual as we are.

Maybe this helps:

Our conversation got me thinking about marriage, and the choice we make to love one particular person. It is not our love that has been unwavering for 45 years, it is our commitment. Likewise we can be full with doubts, wavering in our faith in God, yet unwavering in our commitment – in our decision to follow Jesus, in our discipleship.

It’s like we are living a particular story. I have chosen to live in – and live into – the Christian story, the story of God’s love for this world expressed through Jesus, God’s invitation to come home and to accept this gift of mercy and grace.

When I became a disciple, other ways of living – other narratives – did not cease to exist; nor did I suddenly know and understand the Jesus story without any questions or doubts. In a way it’s the same principle as choosing Rebekah as the one and only person who would own my fidelity and the particular focus of my love; it was love that brought us into the marriage but now it is the marriage – the commitment – that sustains the love.

In other words, having stepped into the Christian story, it is my daily choice to follow Jesus that is – at times – more compelling than my at-the-moment belief.

The value of fidelity to a belief is that it strengthens everything about the particular covenant in play. Like the story I shared about the man who argued that if he loved his wife more he would be kinder to her – and I said, “Be kinder to your wife and you will find that you do love her more.” Also when we find more ways to tell our spouse we love them we in turn become more filled up with love.

So it does not make sense to avoid prayer or worship until we feel like it; instead, we come to church because we are in a covenant relationship with God. It is the practice of faith that brings us more consistently into belief and into joy. When we make the decision to lean into God it seems that our hearts typically follow our heads.

The value of fidelity to a belief is that it strengthens everything about the particular covenant in play.

If we have doubts, the best response is to move in closer. Pray, come to worship, be generous, attend Bible-study. Belief is not so much necessary for coming to church as it is something that goes home with us after the benediction.

After all, when I accepted Jesus I entered into a covenant relationship with God. The least I can do is to be faithful – DEREK