What To Do When Faith Makes No Sense

When you get shredded in life, insecurities surface. It has been said that grief and pain touch every aspect of your life. No stone is left unturned.

That is not just in connection with the passing away of a spouse, parent, sibling, child, or friend. Some losses are less severe than others and can quickly be recovered from, but loss takes many forms from career, relationships, moving house, or changing churches to name a few. The process of dealing with the impact of these losses can be likened to waves pounding a beach or layers peeled away from an onion. They are not one-time moments or events, and just when you think you are ready to move on, or even more so, everyone else is ready for you to just move on, you get hit again.

The passing of Rachel in October 2023 is the greatest loss I have ever experienced. The pain and the process are both deep and lengthy. I do not know all that lies yet before me in this process. d.

In 2016, we walked away from thirteen years of church planting and deep relationships. Some of those relationships remain close, but it is much different now in the ways that we relate and how often. A few years before that, we experienced two miscarriages. Rachel always felt there was a possible third, but these were confirmed pregnancies with an obvious physical termination of the baby. These are all deep painful experiences that have marked me. I am different because of them, and the way that I responded to each loss, differing based upon my experiences and understanding at the time, determined whether I would move forward with success in life or get stuck in the pain.

Just as love needs an opportunity to prove itself as unconditional, so does faith. Some people have confused faith as the ability to avoid difficulties and pain or the denial of its existence. These people become confused when they go through things. On the other side of the spectrum, people define faith as the grace and strength to endure hardship and pain, never expecting their faith to bring any change whatsoever to life's circumstances.

With love, we can say that we love each other all day, but until love has an opportunity to stick with someone and serve them when it is inconvenient, it is never truly love. A lifetime of deep love is the result of a series of opportunities over a long duration to put someone else before yourself. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the love extended.

If we only qualify faith by what we get in physical answers to it and put that as the highest measure of it exercised, then we have missed the genuineness of faith. The proof of faith can be in the results as we read stated in Hebrews 11:1, ”Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," but it is a mistake to limit faith to natural experiences or our timelines. Hebrews 12 would therefore not be a Hall of Faith but a Hall of Failure if we take that approach.

We see in Hebrews 12 two types of faith on display. Those who believed and saw what they believed for, and those who had faith and never saw in this earthly realm what they believed for. We read in the chapter that the eternal reward of faith is what they sought out.

My son called me once from Charis Bible College to tell me what a teacher had shared and how it had touched his heart. He said that he believed that when someone exercises faith, even though they may pass on to glory before they see it (or they pass away young and before they should), they get credit for that faith. It made so much sense to me and touched my heart when I heard those words.

How is that possible? Faith is not limited to time and space. It is eternal. And according to Hebrews 12, it is still accomplishing a work on this earth if exercised in the sincerity of someone's heart even if they are no longer present in this reality. Their faith still speaks today and has results long after they have left their existence on this earth.

What about those times we just fall short of exercising the faith that we have?  When we know the promise, but never see it when we knew, based upon the Scriptures and/or the prophetic, that we should?  That is where we can become paralyzed with guilt and condemnation, and we need to see beyond this natural world.

There are so many aspects to this pilgrimage we traverse while here on earth. God’s plans, our will, satan’s attacks, sin-filled world, lack of knowledge and understanding, and the list goes on. It is a complex web that does not always make sense. Faith reaches beyond the limitations of time and the natural world we live in. It reaches for the comforts of heaven and the love of the Father to heal and bring wholeness during pain and loss while persevering for better days, greater revelation, and more sustained miracles.

Faith is a decision to hold fast when things do not make sense. To embrace the One who is truth, when to the natural mind life seems vague, foggy, and without reason. Faith is not about churches, theologies, and head knowledge in a time of crisis. It is based upon something greater, and that is the person of Jesus Christ.

I get so tired of people’s theologies when I face life's challenges. Not that theology is not important, but is it God's truth or man's interpretation? It is amazing how often in a season of crisis, people climb into their lofty pulpits and preach as if they are full of fear themselves that what you might say or what you may be experiencing may rock their belief system. If it is true it will remain. Always remember, God is not afraid of mess. If anything, the mess can be an opportunity to bring about wholeness, change, and healing.

So what is faith when nothing seems secure? It is taking the time to draw near. It is not giving up. It is believing in the One who has the answers when the answers themselves allude you. It is the ability to remain and to just “be” with God when life makes no sense.

So before you do something radical or reactionary, stop and just "be." Learn what this means. It is easy to make life-altering decisions when chaos is within and without, but it takes courage to pause and ponder.

1. Pause. That is one of the greatest steps of faith you can sometimes take.

2. Reflect. Get understanding that comes through intimate times with God. Learn something new about yourself and your circumstances. Deal with stuff that has come to the surface before moving on.

3. Restore. Allow God to do the process of putting you back together. Let it be in His time and in His way. He is the God of restoration and restitution. Release the tendency to take matters into your own hands. Pain and loss can resurrect our felt need to control because the loss in and of itself is us losing control. Let go and let God as you never have before. This is our opportunity to go deeper with God than we would have if we had not gone through this loss.

A good friend once offered great wisdom. Never make major life decisions when in a pit. Sometimes you need to react to get out of that situation and change your situation, but most often, we go when we are supposed to stay and make radical decisions when we should wait. When we handed over the leadership of Life Church, both in Portlaoise and Carlow, everything was going amazing. That was the time to leave because it set the church and us up for greater success in the next steps, and thankfully, those people and the church are moving on strong in God.

So whatever you are going through right now, or whatever you will be going through connected to pain and loss in the future, see it as a stepping stone into something new. Do not let the pain be wasted. The only way that will happen is if you use that pain and loss to go deeper with God than you have ever been. You will never regret that!

Getting Back on Your Feet

The biggest obstacle we face in life when we experience loss is fear.

In 1989, I sat in history class watching TV with people all around the world as the first sledgehammers hit the Berlin Wall, which had separated East from West for decades. At that moment, something was deposited within my heart that I did not understand at the time. All my ethnic roots were from Eastern Europe and somehow I identified with the years of pain and isolation and wept at the site of joyful reunion and freedom experienced when the era of communism fell in that part of the world.

Fast forward seven years and after living in Budapest, Hungary for three months doing a YWAM DTS, followed by two months of outreach in Serbia and Croatia, I was making plans and attempting to raise money to move to Croatia as a missionary. This has not been my first trip to Eastern Europe. My first mission trip was to war-torn Croatia in 1993 when I was nineteen years old. The following year I was in Bucharest, Romania for two months.

It was a devastating blow when the funds did not come. I felt incredible rejection. My line of thinking was that there was a shortage of missionaries all around the world, and yet for some reason, God did not use me. I was a failure somewhere. I felt "the call" and the opportunity presented itself, and for some reason, I was just not good enough for God. All the self-hatred and places I saw my failures in my life were highlighted to me.

I got a job at a coffee house and settled into a life of confusion. I wrestled with God and beat myself up. Other days I attempted to encourage myself in the Lord. More than anything, I had to learn to be content in the moment.

It was not that long, just a year and God started to reveal that He truly had called me and that He was leading me in a certain direction, but I could not hear it. I did not want to. Trust had been broken by the circumstances. This is that place in our lives, where if we let it, fear takes over and shuts us down from proceeding.

When becoming the new president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, facing the crisis of a world war declared to the citizens of America this statement that also resounded around the world, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

I was stuck, and I know that God understood why. Years down the road, I understood why it never worked out. I never would have met the wife of my dreams. God wanted me in Europe, but based in Ireland, and not in Croatia. Through several devastating events, the people who were pioneering the work I was meant to join ended up back in the United States and the mission never got up and running. These were all bits of information that I was not privy to at the time. I had to simply trust.

There are two types of loss we usually find ourselves in. God closes the door for certain reasons (which was what I was going through at the time), and those that happen because of bad choices or ignorance on our part, we have an enemy out to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), or that we live in a world of sin and corruption. No matter the reason, God is working to bring about good (Romans 8:28).

I did not believe that at the time. The views I had of myself and Him, though they were changing and becoming more in line with what God said about me, had not developed enough for me to be able to trust again. Fear had taken root and I was stuck.

The coffee shop that I worked at was located in an outdoor shopping mall. The local business employees used to come and get their coffee throughout the day. I had developed some kind of friendship with several of them.

I remember vividly the day Sal came in all boisterous in his usual Italian way. He worked at the tuxedo shop at the end of the mall. As far as I knew, he was not a follower of Christ personally, though he had a reverence and understanding of who God was through religion.

"This is a college person's job. What are you doing here? You have all these dreams to do missions and stuff. What would the Big Guy say? He would say get your %&!@ out there!"

And so, God's prophet spoke to me! I figured that if God could use a donkey to speak to Balaam when he could not see the angel before him trying to block his way, God could use Sal to challenge me to step out again into missions. It would have been likely that if that word came from someone at church or that I knew was strong in their relationship with God, I probably would have dismissed it. Sal just spoke to me right where I was at with the language that I needed to hear it.

Within months, after taking some time to get away and ask God where He wanted me to go, I was on my way to Texas. It was not Europe, which frustrated me at times, but it is where I met my wife and became the launching pad for us to move to Ireland in 1999.

I still face fear. I heard a preacher respond to someone who asked for prayer to remove the fear that he would have to pray then that they would die and go to heaven. We will always face fear. The question is how do we respond to it.

A few things that I have learned over the years, particularly from this experience, as it was my first great loss in life. Often we think of loss in terms of people dying, but loss comes in all forms, and if we do not deal with it, it will form a wall around our faith and ability to find life again after loss.

1. Be honest about where you are at. Be honest with God. He knows already what you are thinking and believing. If possible (though sometimes it may not be), find one or two trusted people to share your heart with and get GOOD counsel.

2. Find people who can empathize with you, but do not look for sympathy. Empathy is about people who care for you and weep with you, but also keep pointing you to what God says about you and your life. Sympathy is people who feel sorry for you. When I am going through loss and hardship I have learned to avoid people of sympathy. It feels nice to my flesh, but gets me stuck in self-pity and that is not what I need or what need when going through a hard time.

3. Dig into the Bible and find the truth of what God says about your circumstances and your future. Write them out. Put them in visible places. Say them out loud. Surround yourself with the promises of God.

4. Do not be too hard on yourself. I am all about taking personal responsibility for change in your life. You are the only one who can do that. Some people get stuck there and need to be challenged in this area, but if you are like me, you can over-internalize everything and defeat yourself as your own worst enemy. Remember, the only accusations that stick, whether from people or the voice of our spiritual foe, are the ones that we believe in ourselves. Choose to believe what God says about you and focus on that.

5. Give yourself time. I believe in miracles and instant healing and wholeness, but so often the internal battles that we face come with a long history of events and beliefs that need to be dealt with at a root level before we see a change in the fruit. I can count on one hand the times when God has stepped into my life and miraculously changed something on the inside of me, and usually when I do experience that kind of sudden miracle in my inward person, it is the result of months and years of investing in studying the Scriptures, listening to sermons, and pressing into that particular area before that "light bulb" moment. Most transformation comes a day at a time, line upon line, and precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:13).

If you find yourself dealing with any kind of loss and fear is knocking at your door, or maybe already inside your house making itself at home with its feet up on your coffee table, let these tools help you begin to take your life back and kick that fear out! Remember, fear will always be present. It is up to us how we respond to it, and if it is already there and has a foothold, just go through these steps. Find someone you trust who can pray with you and encourage you (not preach at you and shame you).

God wants to turn your loss into something beautiful, and He can when we (me and you) allow Him to.

*** The picture above is of Rachel on the Waterford, Ireland coast near Dungarvan.

"I Am Calling You Up."

One morning when I recently got up, I just sat in bed sharing my thoughts with the Lord.

“I just cannot do this.”

Two of my kids were suffering the day before, as I tried to minister to them.  They know that l have been struggling as well, and because of that would choose to keep from dumping on me.  Time and again, I have had to express that it is more difficult to see them holding back and trying to carry it on their own than to share the burden.  And so is the journey that we are on…and thankfully, we keep finding each other and going deeper.

In those moments with God, I just expressed the deep pain and loneliness I felt to no longer have my best friend with me (not feeling alone, just missing Rachel).  God has sent some amazing people, but that day-to-day and moment-by-moment sharing of life and memories…gone.

And on top of that, there is that sense of confusion as to what is next.  I know that I am still called to ministry…in the sense of the calling to a full-time career.

“How does that work?  God, I don’t know exactly what to do anymore.”

Since we handed over Life Church in Portlaoise and Carlow, there has been this wandering.  And yet, it has been one day at a day, leaning into Him, and doors to minister and keep going and the money to do it…just has kept being there.  Sometimes I have wondered if I am done with ministry, just by default of the circumstances I find myself in, and then BAM…God encourages me to keep going, provides some kind of miracle, or opens a door.

As I lay in bed, struggling the past few days, where I had grown accustomed to this stage of ministry that we have been in as a family these past seven years and have learned to be content, in the moment and to love it, also knowing there was a future work that God has prepared us for…feeling extremely lost…at the end of a season and not knowing how to live what is next, not understanding what it is, and struggling to know how to lead my family.

After just laying in bed a few hours, getting that chance being a weekend, listening to the Word and scrolling some, I made my way downstairs, made a smoothy for me and the kids, some coffee, and sat down to read a book I just got on kindle a few days ago.

And there in my face, in God’s gentle loving consistent reaching out to me and my family, was the answer for us right now.

“I am calling you up.”

I understood that my relationship with God has changed over the past seven years.  It started on Holiday in France, three weeks before we resigned when I had a ten-day mental breakdown that changed my life.  Rachel read me those seven days from the book Hinds Feet in High Places.  The only two messages God spoke to me were, “Go back to the beginning,” and, “Don’t forfeit what I am doing by quitting.”

I started to read the Bible cover to cover.  In two years I did it three times.  Then I started listening with Rachel outside of reading and studying when we went to bed, often leaving it all night while we slept and into the morning.  During Covid, we took the time to study more pray in tongues more, and had our kids watch with us to at least one sermon a day.

And in the midst, ministry just seemed to happen.  Doors opened more to preach.  I found myself not preparing for sermons anymore.  I just jotted a few words to get me started and felt God told me to open my mouth and He would fill it with words as I had been spending much time with Him in the secret place (there is nothing more spiritual about preaching this way, and I prepared and had thorough notes for nearly thirteen years of preaching nearly every Sunday, and sometimes more when traveling to preach other places).

****That is one of the things I miss most about Rachel being gone.  We did so much of life together, our interests and hobbies.  Even when she painted, which I do not do, I sat often in the same room in the evenings practicing and writing music.  But we shared spiritually together throughout the day.  Jesus was our ultimate pursuit as a couple and family, and we kept that the centerpiece of our home and conversation, at meals and throughout the day.

So there was God’s answer to me.  I cannot say I fully understand, but as I read this book, and as the author described through the Old Testament and New Testament, that we can have as much of God as we want and that there are levels in God, I could hear the still small voice of God in my heart giving me the answer to all my struggles.

“I am calling you up.”

I do not know what that looks like in the months or years ahead.  I sometimes struggle to keep focus and know-how that looks even now.  But I believe this is not just a message for me.  It is what God is saying to the Church today around the world.

“I am calling you up.”

Lord, help me to put distractions aside and heed your call.  Help me to allow this to be my ultimate focus.  Help this touch those who read this as well.  Amen.