Faith and Trust

It has been many months since I have posted here. In those months I have been letting go of my need to define my spirituality, to define God. As is evidenced in earlier posts of mine, this past summer I spent a great deal of time and energy trying to determine what I meant by ‘God’ and how that did not contradict science. I also have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to determine the meaning of Jesus and trying to figure out both what it means to be a Christian, and whether or not I am a Christian.

Despite the time and energy I invested in the search for answers, I eventually realized that whether or not I had these answers, I continued to behave in the same ways, to live my faith regardless of the words and definitions I tried to squeeze it into.

Today I am beginning to accept that God is something I will never be able to describe. My faith is not about answers to specific questions or about my ability to fully articulate all of my experiences. My faith is not about the language I use or the labels I claim. It is about living and loving, trusting and growing. My faith is built on experience and love.

I have noticed that sometimes I’ll use words like “the world” or “life” where I have in the past sometimes used “God”. Such as “I’m learning to trust the world more,” or I’ll speak about the challenges “life” has thrown at me. In either case I could just have easily spoken of trusting God more, or of challenges God has thrown at me, and for me, the meaning is the same. What is most important is not who or what I trust, but that I trust.

I trust that no matter what happens in my life, I will be ok – even if the kind of ‘ok’ I am doesn’t look like what I expect it to. I have faith that when I do what I know is right there are impacts beyond what I will ever see or comprehend, even if I don’t see any positive impact myself. I have faith that I am a valid, legitimate person whose feelings are real, and that this is true for every human no matter what. I trust that if my world falls apart I can and will pull through, even if I can’t see how.

Whether or not I know what ‘God’ is or if anything tangible exists that can be called ‘God’, I can still learn to let go, I can still trust, I can still have faith, I can still know the power of grace and love, relying on what I know to be true from my experience: “This I know experimentally.”

much love to all,
Claire