Have you ever suffered a crisis of faith?

Your whole perspective is under attack.  You are no longer sure of what you believe.  You doubt nearly everything you know as true or hold as certain.

I believe there are patriots around this country suffering from this malaise of spirit right now.  They look at the political direction of the country, the economic certainties facing us, the moral degradation of society and cry out in anguish.  Thoughts begin to form such as those of secession.  Labels of tyranny and despotism get added to the vitriolic mix.  They begin to draw inward and insulate themselves from those unlike themselves as a self-protective measure.  They look to their families, their neighbors, and their friends for some semblance of stability in the turbulent world we live in.

These spirited and passionate men and women are discouraged by the reelection of a President contrary to so much that they hold dear and thought that their fellow citizens held dear.  They are discouraged by the sense that the each election is just more of the same.  They are discouraged at the lack of difference between major party political candidates and the lesser-of-two-evils approach to governing this great nation.

They have every right to suffer a crisis of faith at this point.  Their view of America has been shaken at it’s core.  Why a crisis of faith?  Aren’t these principles concrete over history?

Absolutely not.  Governments and societies rise and fall.  Man lives and dies.  There is only one concrete absolute in all of the universe and that is the preeminence and authority of God Himself.  Everything else is just a ripple in time.

I recall hearing once that anyone who does not suffer a crisis of faith at some point was never truly a believer in the first place.  A person at peace with the world, who does not feel like a stranger in a strange land, has never truly separated from it.

Do you, patriot, feel like a stranger in a strange land?  Do you look out at the American landscape and ask yourself “what happened?”

To you, all I can say is to stand firm. I refuse to become cynical, nor do I cling to false hope.  These trouble times, this adversity we will soon face as we go over the “fiscal cliff” will ultimately prove to be a good thing.

How can I believe this?  Because adversity causes us to realize that real value is not of this Earth.  There is nothing here for us because the Kingdom of God is infinitely more valuable than anything in this world.  All of the things that we cherish, even our very freedoms, can become idols to us to distract us from this fact.  We are tempted to put more value in life here on Earth than on life with God.  This adversity to come will be good for us as a people, like a forest fire – destructive at the onset, but clearing the dead wood and old growth for new fresh growth to occur.  Adversity leads us to search our souls, and renews our faith, because when you’re at the very bottom, you have nowhere to look but up.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Anne Bradstreet

When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.

“Stray Birds,” Rabindranath Tagore

Let us pray not to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them.

Rabindranath Tagore