{"id":1922,"date":"2011-08-25T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2011-08-25T00:01:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T07:01:48","slug":"to-lose-faith-is-to-stop-looking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2011\/08\/to-lose-faith-is-to-stop-looking\/","title":{"rendered":"To Lose Faith is to Stop Looking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n

\u201cTo lose faith is to stop looking.\u00a0 To lose faith is to decide that all you ever saw from afar was your own best dreams.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Frederick Buechner<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve had that quote on a sticky on my desktop for years now. I don\u2019t know where I first read it. I simply read it. Every day I read it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a doubter.<\/p>\n

That probably doesn\u2019t come as a shock to you if you\u2019ve been reading this blog long enough. Usually, if a believer finds peace in the acceptance of \u201cmystery,\u201d she worked a long time to get her hands off of the doubt and on to that mystery.<\/p>\n

What I mean is, my head has never let me rest, not since the first day I declared to Jesus my life, a four-year-old on a swing in the backyard of my babysitter\u2019s house. No, that wasn\u2019t when I was \u201csaved.\u201d That came later. At four, I understood what I needed to understand: good and evil. Jesus and Devil. Myself, the swing and the sky. I gave Jesus a whole heart. I rejected all I knew of evil. I offered this life.<\/p>\n

There are some decisions that shape the course of what you are, where you\u2019ll walk this earth. Mine was love. I boldly offered Jesus my love. My head has been crammed ever since. For every certain experience of God\u2019s presence, for every answered prayer, there a sure and present nag, a crusty whisper that what I\u2019ve seen is not enough, that what I\u2019ve counted as God\u2019s love has been simply privilege.<\/p>\n

Then I pray and choose to let the girl on the swing love Jesus.<\/p>\n

My son is three-years-old, and thinking. Every prayer I offer out loud he\u2019s thinking through. Reacting. Analyzing. Determining.<\/p>\n

Friday in the car, we listened to an old folk hymn from a children\u2019s album: \u201cWelcome Table.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis song\u2019s about having dinner with God, August,\u201d I said, glancing in the rearview mirror. \u201cIt\u2019s about heaven and how we get to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go to heaven,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to stay at my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t go for a long time,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s so wonderful there.\u201d He wasn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n

He was still thinking about it Saturday night. \u201cMommy,\u201d he said, interrupting my prayer, my hands still tucking the sheets around him as the words came out. \u201cMommy! But I can\u2019t see God!\u201d<\/p>\n

My heart sank. It wasn\u2019t because he admitted what we all struggle with. Not \u201cseeing\u201d is the hardest part, right?<\/p>\n

My heart sank because I saw in him what lives in me, that twirling brain, striving for some solid part to hang my faith upon. I long for him to be a man of deep, life-altering faith. And I know it will be a battle for him.<\/p>\n

I looked at him, answered: \u201cGod is too beautiful for us to see, Aug.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so we hold to the part we can\u2019t see, right? We call that beauty the mystery and we beg for it to seep into the rest of us so it\u2019s not just our hearts that believe, not just our bodies, not just our souls, but those pesky minds God gave us too. And I hope I\u2019ll raise this long-legged boy to look with his mind into the depths of that mystery and call it beautiful. Because, when he does, he\u2019ll find that there is much that lies deeper than his \u201cown best dreams\u201d and he\u2019ll long for the table where God is serving that lovely meal.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll save a seat for him nearby.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTo lose faith is to stop looking.\u00a0 To lose faith is to decide that all you ever saw from afar was your own best dreams.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Frederick Buechner I\u2019ve had that quote on a sticky on my desktop for years now. I don\u2019t know where I first read it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[41,83,121],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-praying-life","tag-doubt","tag-mama-life","tag-spiritual-practice"],"yoast_head":"\nTo Lose Faith is to Stop Looking - Micha Boyett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cTo lose faith is to stop looking.\u00a0 To lose faith is to decide that all you ever saw from afar was your own best dreams.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Frederick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2011\/08\/to-lose-faith-is-to-stop-looking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Lose Faith is to Stop Looking - 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