The fact is that in our pridefulness, memorizing mathematical formulas and filling our minds with the humanist dogma that man can achieve all things (if given enough time, manpower, and resources), fuels our egos and feels, well, ‘safer’ from a rational perspective than trusting in God for which faith is indispensible, and, frankly, sometimes intangible.
When it comes to our own lives, many people today opt for so-called ‘life-extending’ machines and breathing tubes, precisely because they’ve not prepared themselves for life with God—for eternal life. Ironically, I’d maintain that it takes more faith to believe in the random chance involved in many modern theories on the formation of the cosmos, than it does to believe that God purposefully and lovingly created the universe—there is order in the universe, which suggests, if nothing else, an Orderer.
But what happens when things just don’t work out; when you lose a loved one to a horrible disease, when depression sets in, when all your self-confidence and prideful egoism is shattered by your failure to get into the field that you were sure would be begging to hire you, or when a relationship fails because of sin and brokenness?
The old statement, “there are no atheists in the fox-holes,” holds true whenever humanism fails and it always fails in the end because it’s a false religion made by men: The problem is that the more time people spend apart from life in God, clinging to humanism, the harder it is to change our ways, to open ourselves up to His healing and really learn what is real love. In other words, it’s harder to have faith in God over all those temporal things we otherwise put our trust in.
The truth is that faith can be scary. Faith means relinquishing control. Our pridefulness leads us to believe that we can “do it on our own” without God, but faith demands that we open ourselves up, become vulnerable towards God, and allow Him to change us, work in our lives, and heal us.
Yes, faith is scary, but in a good way: the child learning to ride a bike depends for safety and stability on his father’s firm hold on the seat while peddling. The child has to depend that the father will be there to catch her if she falls. There comes a time, however, when the father lets go and the child, frightened, nevertheless learns to peddle on his own.
God loves us and desires to make us into the men and women He created us to be, made as we are in His image and likeness and called into fellowship, communion with Him. Faith is a necessary prerequisite for us to achieve all that God has planned for us in this life and the next.
To learn to have faith, we must approach God as a little child, trusting that God will lead us, even as we may doubt or fear. Step by step, God builds in us (if we allow Him to) the characteristics of a citizen of heaven necessary for everyone who wishes to spend eternity in God’s near presence. Otherwise, if we prefer our own way, our own beliefs, or those of our culture, we may find ourselves rejecting His love on that awesome day of His appearing.
In other words, faith is more than belief. Faith is the desire for more: for healing from our sin-sickness, our spiritual ‘blindness.’ Faith is a desire to come into and walk in the light of Christ, however far we may feel from that light and truth now, befallen with doubts, fears, prideful self-focus, habitual sin, the voice of the humanistic culture, whatever. Faith is the desire for transfiguration, for accountability and growth in humility—for real progress in the life in Christ. It is the desire for God to take us forward in faith, in life, in love.
The blind man in today’s Gospel demonstrates this kind of faith to us: He is yearning for God, yearning for healing. He will not be silenced. He drowns out the other voices around him, trying to quiet him, so that Christ God will hear His cry. Brothers and sisters, this is faith!
Each of us needs to ask ourselves, where is my spiritual blindness, where are my greatest needs for healing? Christ, the Great Physician of our souls and bodies, stands more than ready to hear us, to help us, to heal us as He did this blind man who receives His sight in today’s Gospel.
Lack of faith is not God’s doing, for He desires for all to come to faith in Him. God may confirm what is already in ourselves, but He always desires more for us. No, it’s our own pride, our rationalism, or egos, our lack of faith, our reliance on ourselves, on our lack of accountability, our unwillingness to cry out to God, to humble ourselves, to listen to His truth over the din of the culture’s latest whims of so-called ‘progress.’
Ask yourself: Is there anything in your life you’re afraid to give over to God, to entrust to Him, to give up control of? I encourage you, urge you, to open your heart, to yearn for God, to avail yourself of His life in the Church. Put Christ and His Church front and center in your life, put Him on the front burner rather than relegating Him to the back where He is simply one voice among many and is often drowned out by our scientific, skeptical, rationalism and materialism.
Cry out to God in your heart like the blind man. If you find yourself trying to avoid accountability or Confession, or avoid conforming to some aspect of the Orthodox Faith, don’t fear; instead, humble yourself, admit that you don’t have all the answers, that you can’t do it on your own. God will take you by the hand and lead you further up and further in His Kingdom.
Ask yourself if you have been going it on your own, stuck inside your own head or with your own passions and reasonings, or if you’ve been listening to the culture with all its self-professed and transitory ‘wisdom,’ over the timeless truth of God. Struggle to let go of your false sense of control and put God in the center of your life. Pray God that He soften your heart so that He may heal your spiritual blindness, that you may see with spiritual eyes and find healing in Him. Such a recognition, such a yearning, never goes unanswered by God, who loves us and calls us to be glorified with Him. Today, I ask you to take a step forward in faith. Do not fear! Ask for the faith of the blindman: God is with us in His mercy and love for mankind and His word is Truth!
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Mission
Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014
Epistle: Col. 3:12-16
Gospel: Luke 18:35-43
