Four (4) Stages of Belief

There's a song that runs through my mind, I think it's Amy Grant singing Tomorrow, where the words say, "All you gotta do is believe!" Well, if it were that simple, everyone would be doing it now, wouldn't they! That's the thing about belief --- we're all supposed to have it and yet nobody can tell you how to get it. Even if you ask, most people will just tell you that you have to do it ... like believe is a verb that you can just select.

Actually, I think that believe is what you do after you get belief. But you can't possibly do it without having the belief. I guess in that respect, it's a little like telling you that all you have to do is swim --- but giving you no water.

So here's what I know about belief and believing. You see, I don't think I can just decide to believe anything. I just go along not believing. Some evidence might become known to me that may gradually make me suspect that it could be true or believable. Eventually, the facts overwhelm me and then I have no choice but to believe. Believing in Christ is so much like that. I think there are four stages to belief for Christians:

1. See it as impossible to believe (e.g., a fairy tale).
2. Investigate the facts but still remain unconvinced. (May want to believe, but just can't.)
3. Encounter Jesus personally on this issue and He begins to provide the belief.
4. Commit myself to Jesus and to serving Him, then begin to fully comprehend and live the reality of what I believe.

So once I get to step four and am a committed believer, I'm good to go, right? Well, actually no. You see, things can happen that shake my belief. Facts or circumstances may occur that will rock my thinking, and may even undermine the very foundation that my belief rests on. Take for example, I'm following a pastor whom I believe is called and anointed by God Himself. But then I catch that pastor lying or committing some other sin. I may have trouble believing in his calling and even his anointing. But does that make it any less true? No! Of course not!

The darndest thing about belief is that something can still be true even if I don't believe it. Conversely, the fact that I do believe something doesn't mean that it is true. Isn't that crazy? So this is where faith comes in ---- when I'm expected to go on believing even when the evidence suggests otherwise. Faith = complete trust in and loyalty to God that results in an open willingness to do His will. So I have to respond to a God a can't see, answer a voice I can't hear, etc.

Do I really have that kind of faith? How would I really know? Sometimes I want to do His will, but it's a painful proposition. Sometimes doing His will even makes me suffer. My suffering in doing God's work was forecast. Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, "Happy are those who are persecuted for they do what God requires." I understand that to mean that happy are those who allow themselves to be spent for the purposes of the Lord.

So my suffering in doing God's work helps me know Christ better? It helps me experience His joy more? Why didn't I comprehend that?

In the second century, the church father Tertullian wrote, "The blood of Christians is seed." because the persecution of the Christians just helped Christianity grow even faster. Okay, Lord. Now I understand. Let me suffer for your works gladly, and help me remember the joy that comes from that suffering.