I Don't Have Enough Faith

Faith … either you have it, or you don't. Well, perhaps not. Jesus spoke of a "mustard seed" of faith and Paul wrote that to each of us is given a "measure" of faith, so there does appear to be a "quantity" to faith. Still …

There is a significant segment of the Pentecostal-type Christianity that tells me that I can and should speak in tongues, that I can and should be able to heal people, that sort of thing. "It's God's will," they tell me. So, why isn't it happening? "Well," they assure me, "clearly you don't have enough faith." Yes, that's what I said. I don't have enough faith. I don't have sufficient faith to say that God will definitely give me spiritual gifts X and Y if I request (demand?) it because, after all, I think the Bible says that the Spirit gives to each one "as He wills" (1 Cor 12:11), not me, and Paul asks obviously rhetorical questions when he writes, "Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" (1 Cor 12:30) No, they don't. So my faith isn't sufficient to overcome that -- God, in my view -- so I'm only a second-rate Christian (at best) to those types.

There is a surprising number of Christians these days who are really into the "name it and claim it" kind of faith -- the Prosperity Gospel. It is big in the U.S., of course, but it is surprisingly popular in Africa and South America, too. They actually believe that God wants you to be happy and healthy and wealthy and wise. (Okay, I threw in that "wise" thing for the rhythm of the sentence.) They tell me that all I have to do is have enough faith and I can have all that. Steve Taylor sang, "I know You'll give me what I need; they say I need a shopping mall." Yes, that kind of stuff. So why don't I have it? In fact, why don't most of them have it? Well, it's obviously not God's fault. It's ours. We don't have enough faith. We don't even have enough faith to get our prayer "Help my unbelief" answered. So I could be really rich and really healthy and stunningly good-looking (Do they offer that, or was I just dreaming it?), but I don't have enough faith.

There is a significant segment of modern Christendom that has arrived at an amazing place in these last days. They have discovered that all of Christendom for all time has failed to properly grasp Scripture -- its meaning, its purpose, its veracity (or lack thereof) -- and they, in these latter days, have figured it out. To be fair, many have bought the lines offered by modern con artists. Like those who argue that the concept of biblical inerrancy is new, coming in around the 18th and 19th centuries, never before seen prior. Of course, history doesn't actually support that notion and the Bible (2 Tim 3:16-17) doesn't support it, but someone said it, so it must be true. So they've "moved on" while remaining "truly biblical." They discovered that the "God-breathed" Scriptures are actually wrong, certainly outdated, and clearly improved upon by modern ideas and morality. They discovered that Paul was wrong when he referenced "dishonorable passions" when men and women exchanged the "natural relations" for passion for the same sex (Rom 1:26-27). They realized that Sodom and Gomorrah died of inhospitality, not "sexual immorality" and "unnatural desire" (Jude 1:7). They figured out that Paul's "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" (1 Tim 2:12) was simple misogyny and could be removed now. They argue that "There is none who does good; no, not one" (Rom 3:10) actually means there are lots of people who do good. In fact, humans are basically good. And so on and so on. These particular elite and their followers (When did "elite" become in insult?) discovered that they had some sort of special "in" with God so that they could see all this when all of Christendom before them did not. I don't have enough faith for that. I don't think I'm that bright, that intelligent, that spiritual. I don't have enough faith in myself to believe that I can correct 2,000 years of consistent Christian thinking. I don't have enough faith.

So I'm stuck here in the mediocre. I just take God's Word for what it says, believing in a measly God who doesn't make mistakes and isn't limited by time or people and can actually mean what He breathes to be said and maintain it and keep it and have it be understood. See? Simplistic. I'm not up to reinterpreting the Bible or correcting the Church Fathers so that Scriptures can be manipulated into meaning nearly nothing at all. I'm just not that good. So I don't get miraculous spiritual gifts, magnificent wealth or health, or expert divine guidance to correct Christendom along the way.

And I'm okay with that.