Faux Faith

“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”  – Deuteronomy 31:6.

Before he was a icon, Michelangelo began his career forging ancient Roman sculpture. He created a new sculpture out of marble, then intentionally broke it, buried it in a garden, and dug it up, declaring it to be a lost Roman antique. Throughout history people have been trying to pass fakes off as the real thing. When it comes to faith, faking it doesn’t help—it hurts.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” What does faking faith look like? Imagine a relationship with someone you don’t quite trust. There is something about them. You don’t tell them that you don’t trust them, you prefer to fake it when you are around them. You put on the smile and pretend that everything is cool. When we fake faith, we do the same thing to God. We just don’t trust God as much as we should, but we are still going through the motions. 

It reminds me a little of a sport that is not for the faint of heart; bungee jumping. People stand very still on the edge of the bridge, breathing heavily or shaking a little. There is one overlying concern. “Will this cord support my weight? Or in other words, is bungee jumping safe? There are a few who get cold feet at the last moment. But in spite of all the collective apprehension, most jump. Some of the people who will  jump off bridges hundreds of feet in the air have no faith in God. They think it is illogical to trust their lives in something or someone they cannot see. They would not take a leap of faith into the unknown, yet they don’t hesitate to trust their life and their future on a man-made cord.  

In trials we can feel like we are tied to a bungee cord, hanging over the side of a bridge and the ground is rushing up to meet us. The difference is that as followers of Jesus, we know we can have absolute faith in the cord we are connected to (God). We are concerned that we will jump off a bridge and we will splat on the ground (financially because the bills are piling up, or a illness is threatening the life we developed, or a relationship is falling apart). Faith is trusting God in those moments. In the midst of a trial when we feel alike we are about to hit the ground, we need to trust God to work his perfect will. We finally look to the heavens and ask God, “when are you going to let me off this bungee cord?” The answer might be “when you trust me enough to stop blinking.”

When trials occur in our life is when we need to have faith in God. God is worthy of our trust.

Discussion questions:

1. What does real faith look like?
2. What can we do short-term to improve our faith?