HOPE - What Is There Left to Believe In?

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Catie J Craig, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Recently, a woman contacted me. She has found hope, but not once how she found hope in the past. She is pursuing what has come to be understood and termed as “deconstruction.”

This term, to the best of my understanding, refers to a type of backward progression of the steps Christians once took to accept faith. In effect, it is retracing these steps and undoing them; in essence, declaring that hope once held in the Christian faith is not enough.

How people practice faith today is definitely not how it was done in the past. Folks are becoming cynical, more cautions – less gullible.

She and I have been since then engaged in the FB version of a popular movie “God is Not Dead.” She has challenged, and continues to challenge my basic premise about God, the Bible, and what or who, I place my hope in.

One of our focuses is the basis for belief. She wants a conversation that includes a layered approach of multidimensionality – intelligently, intuitively, and experientially. I wrote a FB response last night and am tempted to rewrite the entire thing. Am I up to such a task or will I dogmatically assert the truths that I’ve held dear for decades and take offense at their being so vehemently resisted and tested?

My goal has been for most of my life to understand others, and my desire has been to be understood, though I seldom am. Can I accept that the bumper sticker Christianity of the 1990’s is dead and that what I so blithely accepted as truth and once hoped in is being challenged down to its core?

Now I think that this FB gal grasps and accepts the idea of there being a God, but I have yet to define how she sees that entity. There is a kaleidoscope of interpretations of whom or what God is, how he/she shows up, and to what degree hope is held in that entity. Am I as a 65 year old Grandmother of 15 beautiful grandkids up to the task of accepting that God is not a concept so easily grasped as I once thought?

We are a nation that has descended from generations of Judeo-Christian followers. Prayer used to occupy a strong presence in the school systems, church used to be a once-a-week event for most families even if it was only out of habit and / or conditioning. Absolute truth once trumped situational ethics and relative truth that varied from each person’s perspective; it governed our morals as a society, a nation, and a culture. The vast majority of people were rock solid in their hope in the existence of a Creator God who designed the Universe based upon universal principles that worked no matter what the application.

My premise is that hope isn’t placed in a concept but a person. She and I hopefully in our next volley of interactions will dial things down to what she and I hope in. I argue that God can be proved, not scientifically but experientially. Some may feel that this is a weak premise; it is. Experience is subjective, right? I agree, but when something, or in this case, I believe, in Someone, over decades, centuries and millennium, doesn’t that meet the criteria for validity – consistency and time?

Let me give an example.

On two separate occasions, when I moved to two new locations, what or who I hoped in didn’t fail me. The first was a trip to Germany in 1982.

I had learned that God, as I believed Him to be, answered prayers prayed specifically in order to make visible to me, His invisible Presence – that He cared. So I made a list of prayers. Concluding that my needs might be more apt to be answered, I separated my and my family’s needs from wants. There were about 123 items when everything was said and done.

The list got lost. I found it in the couch crumpled up in a ball about 18 months later – in Germany. After smoothing it out the best I could, I checked those things off which had been answered. Everything I’d asked for had been provided – both desires and needs! Everything!

On the second move I have in mind to expound upon, this was in the Alaskan Bush. Moving to a location available only by ferry or plane, I had to be choosy in what was brought.

This list included tediously specific details. I wanted two couches, one with recliners built into it for my husband and I to relax in, and another for my 16-year-old to flop on. I needed bar stools for my very low breakfast bar and a round table with 4 chairs to fit into my country-style kitchen breakfast area. I asked for, and wrote down, that I hoped for the chairs to swivel and be cushioned rather than solid wood.

Shopping on a shoe-string-budget proved to take a bit of effort. One early Saturday morning, I checked out a yard-sale. Our host opened his garage door. Everything I’d asked for was there. The chairs, the bar stools, the table, the couch – only one.

I asked, “Is there another couch?” My hope and faith that had proved out in the past, prompted me to ask. This is the point I made earlier in this article about time and consistency making something as intangible as acting in faith in God plausible and provable.

He stopped and looked at me, as if to say, How would you know? He responded aloud with, “There’s one in the house, a matching one. My wife hasn’t decided to sell it, yet.”

When I arrived with the U-Haul trucks at my new house, I discovered the most interesting details. The bar stools fit as if designed for that low butcher block bar. The table wasn’t round but octagonal, so that it fit flush against the wall. Because the kitchen flowed into the living room, color was important. I hadn’t thought of including that in my prayers. Everything matched, the chairs, the couch, and the barstools – all a deep elegant crimson, solid oak framework.

So, back to what you and I hope in or for, and my ongoing conversation with my FB acquaintance. I feel deeply grateful for those who aren’t blindly accepting the tenets of faith, but are challenging them. Hopefully, though, my listeners won’t be offended or put-off by my outspoken premise that some hallmark traits of faith are provable and consistent. Stories like mine follow a breadcrumb trail across the centuries via first-hand stories of Believers since the Early Church Fathers recorded their amazing experiences that mirror my own. Does all that prove God exists and that this entity cares? It appears to, at least to me, be far more than coincidence.

The world needs hope. I need hope. You need hope. We live in a world of deconstructing Christ-followers, those disavowing their once strongly held faith, and an increasing time of evil ramping itself up beyond anything we ever believed possible.

Is God as I have known Him, flexible, understanding, caring, authentic and discoverable? From my perspective, though subjective, He is. The God of the Bible is true and provides hope. I believe this with all my heart because I’ve lived it, Christianity is about relationship, not dogma.

There is a reason that some of us are throwing off the constraining standards of absolutism, the cliché-laden condescending presence of judgmental, hypocritical Christianity. I would never deconstruct my faith in Christ, He is a person, loyal and true. However, I will allow my belief system to be purified and proved out. I’m not afraid.

I for one am casting off the straitjacket of a useless dogmatic rigid belief system that won’t be challenged, to exchange it for openness, truth, vulnerability, and authenticity. I think that Brene Brown, expert Author of books on such things, would be proud of me.

My hope is solid.