Is Faith Over rated?

I get that this is going to sound heretical.  And maybe it is.  But having spent a lot of time with quite a few people the last couple of years who are slowly (and sometime not so surely) moving toward thinking about/committing to/deciding for/???? Jesus, I think I'm beginning to think that we may be placing too much of an emphasis on faith.  And not enough on God.  Is it possible that faith is getting in our way?  (Please hold your stones for a few more paragraphs).

SO many of my friends seem to be saying, "look, this Jesus guy is interesting to me, but I'm not good at faith, I need to see it to believe it, faith is not my thing, I don't have a lot of faith in anything" - you get the point. To speak to this concern I recently used this example and frankly I'm wondering what you think of it:

Mrs. Didymus is in Mexico on a trip with her small group - it is a "pleasure" trip.  If someone were to ask me, "you let her go to Mexico?"  Yep.  "Without you?"  Yep.  "Man!  You sure do have a lot of faith!"  I would be offended!  It is not that I don't have faith in my wife.  But the reason I'm not worried about Mrs. Didymus in Mexico isn't because I have great faith - it is because I have a great wife!  My faith isn't the point, and my faith has NOTHING to do with her greatness. And my faith or lack of faith in her greatness would never change the fact that she will be great AND faithful in Mexico. 

I'm beginning to suspect that we believe our faith changes God - that he responds to our faith.  I wonder if it is just he opposite?  My faith in my wife doesn't change her - it does however change me!  It is my faith in her goodness for me that enables me to ENJOY her faithfulness to me.  So the faith is for my good, not hers.  She is going to be good to me whether or not I believe in her, but she will only be good FOR me if I have faith in her, because without faith I will be so worried about her greatness I won't be able to enjoy her!  So, I'm not saying we don't need faith, we do, but like a clutch in a car, our faith connects us to the source of power - it isn't THE source of power.  But often we treat it that way!  "Oh he has such a great faith."  "She is such a woman of faith."   Is this helpful?  True?  Anyone who gets out of a Porsche and raves about the clutch, focuses on the clutch, is constantly concerned about the clutch??? you gotta wonder about that guy.  The glory of a Porsche is the engine not the clutch!

I wonder if we helped people focus on God's goodness more than their own faith, if faith would just fall into place.  Instead of trying to conjure up faith, or analyze the quality and quantity of faith in those considering Jesus, what if we would just hold up Jesus and let the chips fall.  It isn't always about us. 

3 things:
-What brings me comfort while my wife is away isn't my faith in her - its just, her.  Knowing her brings me comfort.  Loving her inspires me.  Desiring her excites me.  Wanting to be with her again fills me with hope.  To be real honest, when I consider my relationship with my wife, I NEVER think about my faith in her at all, it isn't the point or the goal, she is.  I think about her. I don't analyze my faith in her as "good and strong" or "weak and bad," it never occurs to me because I'm too busy thinking about her, figuring out how to be with her, or being with her. It strikes me that in a marriage it would be odd and in fact detrimental to spend as much time thinking about our faith in our spouse as we do our spouse.

-I didn't have to have faith in my wife to get to know her...it was in getting to know her that I got faith.  Do we have this backward when it comes to God?

-I think about my faith way too much and my God way too little.

Didymus

Comments

[Philomena]

Didymus,
These are great thoughts.
My response (so far, still thinking...) is to say that ultimately both the presence of God and our belief in Him are foundations of our faith. As you said, our faith does not make God exist, but it is vital to our walk with Him (to our ability to "hold fast"). However, I think in our society where few religious or even spiritual people actually believe what they say they believe, the faith aspect has taken over from the actual presence of a supreme being. If the focus is just on making ourselves feel good, it doesn't really matter if the God(s) we say we believe in ACTUALLY exist. All that matters is our faith in the idea and how comforting that is. So, I think you are right to separate our faith in God from His existence so we can appreciate the difference. And for new believers (which I think was your original context?) it may be a very useful distinction to make because it's so counter-cultural.

[Didymus]

Thanks Philomena. I think you are getting at what I'm trying to say. What I think I'm picking up from unbelievers is that they think the Christian "Faith" is about faith, not so much about Christ. That is, they think what makes our "faith" "work" is faith, that we have faith in, well, faith. I wonder how they pick that up? Is there some truth to this in our pre-occupation with the quantity and quality of our faith? The purity of our faith? Look at the books in a the "Christian Living" section at any religious book store and they all seem to be about the missing part/ingredient/aspect of our faith...not as many about God or Jesus. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this - it is just somethign I've been noticing.

Thanks again. This is an infant line of thought for me...I enjoy working through it with others.

Didymus

[The Interface]

I think you are on the right track here, as our faith is only as valid and effective as the object of that faith. My faith in my ability to fly becomes suicide the first time I jump off the cliff to put my faith into action because the object of my faith was invalid. This is the point of Jesus telling us that the faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains...it's not the faith doing it but the object of our faith, God (who, incidently, hasn't told me to move any mountains, at least physical ones, lately), for Whom nothing is impossible. Faith is a channel, not a source. (Cf. J. Gresham Machen, What is Faith?)