When Faith Doesn’t Seem Like Enough

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Have you ever been in a place when faith doesn’t seem like enough? Have you ever been dealt a blow that has knocked the wind out of you? Have you had what feels like the very life sucked from you in a matter of a few moments?

It must be similar to what a boxer feels when he gets knocked down for the hundredth time and he wonders, “Am I still here?” “Am I still alive?” “Can I manage to get back up again?”

I know some people love to watch things like boxing, but my mama heart wonders what the mothers of those boxers must feel like after their child gets pummeled time, and time, and time again. When that beautiful face they can still see in those first few moments after birth like it was yesterday gets more and more unrecognizable with each passing round. My heart always aches for those moms.

Sometimes I wonder, when the same thing pummels me time, and time, and time again, what does God feel like as he looks on? As He watches me struggle to get up, each time getting weaker, each time looking a bit less like myself and a bit more like a boxer who has gone at least eight rounds, does His heart ache for me?

What about you? When you get that phone call about a loved one, when you receive notice that you are no longer needed at work, or when you wake up to find a Dear John letter in that space where your husband used to breathe warm breath next to you, does God’s heart bleed red for you, too? Like me, do you ever wonder this?

What about when you are in your fourth out of six rounds of chemo and the darkness, the sickness, the sheer exhaustion leaves you on death’s door wishing you could just walk through – does God weep with you? Does he weep for you because you are too depleted to even weep anymore?

Yes. I can answer yes to all of these. However, let me assure you, it is only through faith and hope that I can answer yes. I say this because while I am in that dark place of uncertainty, fear, and despair, I am human. And my humanness cannot uphold me during these times.

It is only by faith that I can stand back up.

Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we do not see.”

In the darkness, I cannot see.

If there is one thing I know about faith, it is that often where faith lives, pain lives as well. I have learned that in order to embrace faith in the promises of what I cannot see, I also have to embrace the pain that comes in that dark place. The pain that comes in that dry and weary land. The pain that leaves me wishing that the entire boxing match could just be called…because at least that way, the relentless beating would come to an end.

Here’t the thing, though.

I think that we have to embrace both the faith and the pain in order to move forward. I think we have to own both our faith and our pain in order to move forward to where both the faith and the pain take us.

I also think that we have to grieve. We have to grieve about our pain because it is only through grieving that we can take ownership of pain. It is only through grieving that we can move forward.

Where do the faith, the pain, and the grieving take us?

They take us to hope, friend. 

I firmly believe we have to embrace pain, in other words we embrace being being human, and we have to embrace faith, which is the supernatural thing we can’t see with our human eyes, and we have to grieve in our pain in order to see the promise of hope.

The promise of hope has been there all along, really, but when our human emotions are being tested beyond their limits and when our faith seems like it’s not enough, we have to find hope in knowing that God’s promises are there, and God’s promises are good. Even when those promises are just a bit further ahead than we would want them to be. Even when those promises are so far ahead that we cannot even see them with our human eyes.

Hope is the reward for embracing both our faith and our pain while going through the grieving process. Hope is what carries us through our pain, hope is what brings us out of our grieving, and faith is what carries us to the beautiful display that hope always provides. Much like the most magnificent sunrise, hope assures us that there is beauty to be found.

Hope assures us that God’s promises are always there, we just may not be able to see them at times, we may not understand the path we must travel to receive God’s promises, and we may not like anything about the pain or the grieving.

When faith just doesn’t seem like enough, it might be because we have to embrace the pain, too. It might be because we have to grieve that pain. When faith doesn’t seem like enough it might be because sometimes, faith just isn’t enough on its own.

However, when we have both faith and hope, we have all we need to see the promise that awaits. Whether near or far, God’s promises are always there.