Reflections on the Landscape of Faith
We all carry a kind of mental map of our spiritual journey, even if you might not be aware that you are operating one. Like most maps, yours probably depicts familiar landmarks by which you navigate and measure progress on your Christian faith pilgrimage.
But what happens when your experience of faith begins to change so dramatically, that you feel you’re getting to the edge of your known map? Or worse, you begin to lose ‘faith’ in your formerly dependable landmarks?
One day I completely lost one of my most valued landmarks… one by which I had always navigated my way on the faith journey. Despite having retained a rich sense of the presence of God all my life, on an unassuming summer’s day some years ago, that sense completely and inexplicably disappeared. And my entire landscape of faith changed in an instant.
I think it’s fair to say that most of our faith-maps don’t include a route along which we might face our struggles without a felt sense of God, the security and love he brings. And I never doubted the theological truth that God was alive and well, or even that God loved me, but for the first time in my life, I simply couldn’t feel the reality. The radio frequency of our contact which had previously been easy to tune into, had now defaulted into white static noise.
When I was a kid, I loved playing on the seesaw at the playground because I felt so high up and the view seemed so amazing when it was my turn to be at the top…but it was never quite so enjoyable when it was my turn to drop to the bottom, with my feet in the mud. But at least the down bit was only momentary. And although we often start our journeys of faith with expectations of being on a continual high, enjoying our new-found sense of God and his love forever more, it can feel that it’s all gone pear-shaped when we inevitably hit the low points where both the view and our faith in faith itself can feel quite different. Most of us live for the ups and simply endure the downs.
But this way of perceiving faith was recently challenged when our church began a Lent series on the book of Lamentations. Spoiler alert: Lamentations isn’t what you might call an upbeat “feel-good” book. In fact, it doesn’t appear to have very many ‘ups’ at all, and it’s ‘downs’ seem depressingly severe. In addition, the author (thought possibly to be Jeremiah) expresses some somewhat shocking sentiments - accusations and recriminations directly to and about God that can smack you in the face if you aren’t paying attention to the movement of tone and cadence throughout its five chapters.