God’s Story, Our Story

Faith is like planting a tree in Kansas. Commitment is like watering it every day.

In the book, God's story, our story, the author gives this illustration of faith being like planting a tree in Kansas where it is windy and dry. Watering it so it can maintain life takes a little bit of effort. I like this idea whole lot more than any of those "it takes a spark to start of fire" type of imagines about faith. The problem I have with fire is that it might swell up quickly but in the end, you're completely burnt out. Plus, what does fire do? Destroy. Not only that, but what do you have to do get caught a spark? Hardly anything except be in the right place at the right time. But this tree imagery – yeah that's something that feels a lot more like faith. Faith starts like a seed planted in the ground. But the thing is that trees take a long time to grow. So even when I don't see anything changing, I stick with it. I water it even when I don't feel like it or feel as if I am the most inadequate person to be taking care of it.

Ps. Russell asked us the other day if we were on fire for Christ. Honestly, this was a hard question for me (and us) to answer. Not only can it have weird connotations but also it sounds very "evangelical" to me and I am not sure what about me in "evangelical" in the way that I unfortunately think about it [this is obviously coming from my American culture and all the negative things "evangelical" can mean). Sometimes, it's really hard to think about my faith like fire because what about the times when I feel like I am in the desert and feel like my faith is barely hanging on. I find myself so frustrated with church most of the time that it's hard to see myself as "on fire" because "on fire" people are never like that. They love going to church. Or so it appears. On really bad days, I wonder that if I didn't honestly believe with my entire being that Jesus was who he said he was and has called us to so much more than the world has to offer us, if I would just give up completely.

But here I am, watering my tree.

I like to think about faith like this because it is hard work. No one really tells you when you're in Sunday School that faith sometimes sucks. That being committed to God, faith, and the church when you're going through a "rough patch" feels more like manual labor than anything else. But I still do it because I believe that God's story is my story – that I have been grafted in to something that is so much larger than my limited perception.