Yes, faith is a choice, our contribution to the changing of our world, so that it becomes like Him, like His character, even into the face of evil. Didn’t He believe in us first, even though we didn’t know Him at the start? Life is our journey and our school, where we have the privilege of getting to know Him and how He works. He stretches us and makes us stronger because of the wait. Didn’t He say that “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”?
Our doubts can seem so strongly accurate, like we see the reality of darkness, itself. But darkness is not a thing: Darkness is only the absence of light. So doubt is our opportunity to exercise our faith and to be educated by His response to it. It is not questions from ignorance or uncertainty which grieves Him, but the lack of trust in submitting them, these emotional queries, to His grace. The only true poverty is not knowing Him!
Most often, His answer is in the very thing which gives us pause. Imagine the distressed grief, if you will, of a young mother unable to be strong enough to defend her offspring from the rampaging and vengeful father. Instead of shutting the episode down, she winds up weeping in her own corner, from fear. Now imagine, this same mother, later asking her own offspring why he always chooses to defend the weak, and being told that the prior incident was the motivating force behind the current choices. The price she paid in the initial confrontation was paid back many times over, in the future! So our choice to remain true to Who we believe in, will bear the fruit that HE has husbanded!
