Sometimes I really struggle to define what it is within me that makes me a Christian; what it is inside of anyone that makes them a Christian.
I say "inside" or "within" because I certainly feel as though I have moved beyond the idea that anything can externally make someone a Christian. You are not a Christian because you have a cross tattooed on your arm. You are not a Christian because you sit in a pew on Sundays. You are not a Christian because you buy organic foods, or because you vote Republican, or even because you listen to Christian music, read Christian books, or have Christian friends.
Being a Christian is an individual stamp that lies on the hearts of those who have it; it isn't something you get simply by being in the right places at the right times with the right peoples. It is something that is specifically true or not true of YOU.
Now, I want to just be clear that people don't mistake what I'm saying here. I do not want to suggest that community is unimportant to Christianity or Christians. Actually, I passionately believe the exact opposite. But my point is that although community and others can introduce you to the Church, its members, its practices, its beliefs, and even its savior, it is not up to them whether or not you become a Christian.
Others cannot do what it takes for you to become a person of faith; it is something you must choose, accept, take part in, enter into, etc. You must be the one who owns the faith you claim, or who must be honest about faith being absent.
Already I am wary of some of my terminology that seems incredibly influenced by this culture and Western Christianity by saying things like "lies on the heart" and so on. I think my dislike of that phrase and the fact that I still use it highlights something interesting:
Defining what is happening or has happened to make or maintain a person a Christian is difficult to articulate. After all, it is a spiritual occurrence, so maybe sprawling out to define it is pointless. But I always seem to come back to this idea of the amount of faith a person has.
There are a few things that complicate this to me. First off, it certainly seems that some people have more faith than others, even when both are Christians and both know and have experienced similar things. Secondly, I know many people in my life, including myself, struggle to feel as though our faith secures us or is something that often feels like a strong support we can lean on. Perhaps the simple answer is that we are all skeptics, but the constant questions about how this can really be true and why do these things make sense seems to be an ever present reality for many people who are part of the Christian faith. Thirdly, people do not seem to know how to increase their faith, or if that is even possible. And there is the kicker.
If some people have more faith than others, but those who have less are incapable of getting themselves to have more faith, then some within the faith are stuck in places for a long time that are full of questions and doubts that range from interesting to debilitating. And to me, this has been very confusing.
So we have faith and we believe, but that is something that we sort of just have and cannot seem to manifest on our own or increase. Then there seems to be only one possible conclusion we can come to:
God is the one who supplies our faith.
Although in some ways that idea is really romantic and seems to reference back to the sovereignty of God, it doesn't come without raising more questions.
If God is the one who supplies our faith, then why isn't everyone a Christian? If God supplies our faith, why has he given some of us more faith than others? If God supplies our faith, why do some people seem to lose faith or why would God seem to take back faith He gave in the first place?
These questions don't have easy answers and I'm not sure the people who are asking these questions want answers as much as they want everyone else to be bothered by them too. But here is the one idea that I have been trying to wrestle and live with: if God supplies our faith than we should pursue God in hopes that we are rewarded with faith. And we need to ask God for faith.
After all, all things come from God. That idea is peppered throughout scripture time and time again. But, think about all the things that we see people having but don't really think about that coming from God as much as being the reward for that person's efforts and discipline.
For example, pick a person who is incredibly advanced in any academic discipline. Physics, history, medical science, mathematics, it doesn't really matter the discipline. If all things come from God then the knowledge that person attains or possesses has to have come from God. But we never talk about it that way. We rarely say, "Oh man, Steve has really been given a lot of physics knowledge by God." No. We never say anything like that. We attribute the knowledge Steve has through his own efforts, and we need to do that. We cannot forsake the effort we put into things and the rewards we then receive for those things.
However, there needs to be a both/and in this situation. What I mean by that is simply that when it comes to our faith, yes it is something that comes from and is supplied by God. But, we need to recognize that our faith is something we receive as the fruits of our own efforts, similar to the way individuals who do a substantial amount of studying will often attain more knowledge as the fruits of those efforts.
Our faith is something God supplies, but he supplies us based on our effort and desire for that faith.
So maybe we need to reassess how we think about our faith. Perhaps we need to reassess our efforts and practices before we go pointing the finger at God for not supplying us with a more substantial faith when the majority of our actions spit in the face or are indifferent to the existence of our faith.
Maybe we need to ask God for help and for more faith. And that very prayer, that very prayer, can be something we will reap the fruit of in our own faith.
Peace.
