Book Excerpt:

Faith and You

Terry Pluto

God Believes in Us

I sometimes go through life with the feeling that I'm not quite measuring up. I could do better. I should have seen that coming. I never should have said that. I should be smarter, tougher, gentler, less opinionated.

I can be my own worst critic, and I do it at the absolute worst times.

I need to remember that God believes in me even more than I believe in me.

Some of us grew up in religious settings where God was portrayed like the IRS agent from Hell. Your life is an income tax return, he has the green eye-shades and the calculator, and he's searching for one comma out of place, one mistake in addition, one iffy deduction that will cause a massive audit leading to your financial destruction. Or if you are an athlete, God can seem like a coach critiquing game films of your life. Any athlete will tell you that some of those film sessions crack their confidence. The good is rarely praised, just expected.

The bad is played over and over, the theme being, “How dumb can you be?”

You see the play once, twice, three times.

It's always the same. You always mess up. The coach may correct you from one angle, then another and another. Nitpicking is the order of the day. The result is a sense of being used as a human punching bag. In the dark of those film rooms, even 350-pounders who can pick up a tank begin to shiver and stutter as the coach calls out their names and asks how they missed that block, failed to make that tackle, or didn't notice they had started the play in the wrong place.

I'm writing this at the end of a week when I feel as if I've lost my edge as a writer. My stories were done on time, and they were done professionally. But they had about as much snap as a soggy bag of potato chips. I read my own stories and get bored fast, which makes me wonder why anyone would want to read them. Maybe after twenty-seven years as a sportswriter I'm just washed out. And as for writing about faith, who am I kidding?

I really believe that down deep, most of us fear that we will be uncovered as a bit of a fraud; that we aren't really what most people believe us to be. We're not a great parent, not an especially good spouse. When it comes to the job we're feeling like we're just hanging on.

That's why we need to hear that God believes in us more than we often believe in ourselves. I have to keep telling myself that. I have to believe it when I can't feel it; believe it even when it seems no one believes in me.

So now it's confession time: I have no theology degree. I've never studied under any famous religious leaders. I make no claim to understand everything about the Bible or even most things about life. For a long time I saw God as “The Grand Designer in the Sky,” the one who started the universe in motion and now just sits back and observes what happens like we would watch a football game or a favorite TV show.

I make no claim to know everything—or even most things—about God.

But I remember that my wife had a major auto accident in 1995. She was driving on a two-lane blacktop road in rural North Carolina, returning home from visiting her parents. It was early morning. A car pulled in front of a gravel truck traveling fifty-five miles per hour in the opposite direction. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, jackknifing the truck right in front of my wife's Honda Civic. She never had a chance. That's exactly what the first police officer at the accident told me.

“When I saw what was left of the car and I saw the size of the truck, I was sure it was a fatality,” he said. “I still don't know how she got out of that.”

The driver of the truck pulled her out. Roberta suffered two broken ankles, one of which needed surgery. But the accident could have—and should have —been so much worse. But God was there for her. For us.

When most of us seriously think about our lives we have stories like mine. Maybe not quite as dramatic, but there is a situation that seemed so severe we were sure we'd never get out of it.

Somehow, we did. We're still not sure exactly how it happened. Some money showed up; a debt was forgiven; a job or promotion or raise came through. Something happened at the last possible moment. God was there.

In some church circles, they say, “God is always on time—but rarely early.” They'll tell you that's because God wants us to know he came through.

Dr. Diana Swoope from Akron's Arlington Church of God once said in a sermon: “Our God is such an on-time God; He can show up late and make it seem early.”

When that happens, God is whispering, “I believe in you more than you believe in you.”

Talk to any alcoholic or anyone who suddenly is in a dangerous position chasing an addiction. Many of these people are not sure exactly how they beat their problems. Or how they escaped frying their brains, destroying their bodies, making themselves unemployable, their lives unlivable. Somehow, they go on. And in some cases, life is getting better, one day at a time.

That's how it is for me. I grab my faith, as small and shaky as it may be, and I take one step, then another, then another. I realize that God believes in me.

One of my favorite stories is in the New Testament book of Mark, 9:14–32. A man has a son who “is possessed by a spirit that robs him of his speech . . . it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid.”

The man brings the child to Jesus, explaining that he had first taken the boy to Jesus' disciples, but they failed to help.

Jesus seems to moan as he says, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I put up with you?”

Most of us have had times when we felt God heard our prayers and said exactly that: “How long shall I put up with you?” We expect to have the spiritual door slammed in our faces as if we were salesmen who had knocked in the middle of dinner.

But Jesus has something else to say: “Bring the boy to me.”

The boy is in the middle of another of his scary, destructive attacks—growling, foaming, and rolling on the ground.

“How long has he been like this?” asks Jesus.

“From childhood,” says the man. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us.”

Jesus replies, “Everything is possible to those who believe.”

Mark's account says the boy's father immediately blurts out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.”

That is one of the most honest prayers in the Bible or anywhere else. God loves a prayer like that. It's not long and flowery. It's not full of pride and pretension. It's nothing but a plea from a desperate, discouraged, hurting father who really isn't sure if anything will happen to change his life or cure his son. He has seen Jesus heal others; that's why he brings his son to him.

The man has talked to the disciples (sort of like some modern-day clergy), and nothing has changed. But he doesn't quit. And when he faces Jesus, he knows he is in a godly presence. But the man has been rejected and disappointed so many times by so many people in his quest to help his son, he doesn't know what to believe.

The man in the Bible is like many of us. It seems the only time anything changes, it gets worse. Everyone we know is tired of hearing our problems. Sometimes we're so tired we can't even talk about our problems anymore. We become convinced we either brought them on ourselves or did something to deserve them. We feel cursed.

We need to know that God understands that feeling. Much of the Bible is the story of God reaching out to the people he loves while they withdraw in fear, back away in misunderstanding, or simply have no interest in anything but themselves. Which is how many people react to us when we're in a crisis.

I often pray like the man did in Mark's Bible passage: “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.”

I've told God that I'm hanging by a spiritual and emotional thread. I've told God that I'm not sure about all of what I believe anymore, but I have enough faith left to come to him one more time. I've learned to go to God when I've been in such anguish I couldn't sleep or I could barely speak. I have to remind myself that before I ask God for anything else, I must ask him for more faith . . . Everyday Faith to cope.

That was what touched Jesus about the man's prayer. It was a plea for more faith.

Mark writes that Jesus healed the boy, and then left with his disciples. The disciples asked him why they couldn't cure the boy of whatever was plaguing him. Jesus says, “This kind [of demon] can come out only from prayer.”

Often, I don't pray enough or with enough confidence. I'm not sure God really wants to hear me. I remember someone telling me many years ago, “Don't you know God is busy with the universe? He'll get to you when there's time.”

That sounds like a theology based on taking a number and praying that God is in a good mood when your turn comes.

Instead, I love the advice that Moses gives to Joshua in Deuteronomy 31:1–8. Moses is blessing Joshua to lead the Jews in their final journey into the Promised Land. Moses says, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.”

God speaking through Moses says those words because he knows there will be times when Joshua will be afraid, when he will be discouraged, when he will feel alone.

We all have those days. That's when we really need our Everyday Faith, when we need to remember that God is there for us and that God believes in us.

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