Faith When You Don’t Know the Outcome
By Jessica Brodie
It’s pretty easy to have faith when your brain and your personal experience tell you something is a sure thing. It’s a whole different situation when you’re absolutely certain the ice beneath your feet is so thin you could fall at any moment, but for the grace of God.
You could argue that every day is an act of faith. We trust that when we get out of bed, there will be a floor beneath our feet. We trust that when we turn on the faucet, water will come out, or that when we get in the car and start the engine, the car will accelerate and we will get where we need to go. We trust that when we lay our head on the pillow for sleep at night that we will wake up again eight hours later to a new day.
Of course, that’s not always the case. This week I was really looking forward to my morning cup of coffee. I scooped coffee grounds into the filter, put in enough water, pressed start … and then nothing. It didn’t work. No telltale sizzle of water heating up, no fragrant aroma of delicious java wafting through my kitchen. I hit start again, unplugged the thing, reset the baskets and wiggled the cords, nothing. Out of nowhere, it had just stopped working.
I am in a place of relative abundance in my life right now, so for me, this is not a major problem—just an inconvenience. All I have to do is buy a new coffeemaker.
But I’ve been in situations that required tremendous faith, when I didn’t know the outcome, and I wasn’t sure whether my needs or fervent desires would be provided or not. It was downright frightening. Those are the times of true faith—when all you can do is pray, and hope that God will answer your prayers in the way you wish.
I remember almost sixteen years ago when my daughter was born. She was my second child, and two years and ten days prior, I had successfully given birth to her brother. I knew what to expect. There would be pain, I would push, and then the baby would be born, wailing lustily as we celebrated with joy and thanksgiving.
But this time was different. My second experience with labor lasted a really long time, much longer than the first. She was a bigger baby, too—nine pounds and six ounces when she came out
And when she came out, there was no telltale lusty baby wail. Instead, there was absolute silence.
“She’s not breathing,” I heard someone say.
They laid her gently on my chest for just an instant, and I kissed her, then they whisked her away to a table nearby, where they worked to get her breathing again.
My eyes wide, all I could do was clutch the cross around my neck and pray with all my might: Please, God. Please, Lord Jesus. Let her be OK. Please let her live.
Moments later, she was breathing on her own, crying with all her might, and she did indeed live. They don’t know why it happened, theorizing perhaps she was utterly exhausted from the arduous birth process. But that moment changed me forever. I now knew what it was like to expect something and then suddenly, out of nowhere, realize there was no solid ground beneath me at all. I was walking on air, walking on waves, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.
In our situation, my desperate mother’s prayer was answered. I know full well it does not always work out this way. Inexplicable tragedies occur. No one knows why, and there’s nothing we did or didn’t do to make something happen or not happen.
But one thing I do know: In that moment, as I prayed, I felt Jesus right there with me. I felt his arms wrapped around me, holding me close. Whatever the outcome, Jesus was there.
Sometimes we pray today like we already know the answer. We pray and know everything is going to be fine. We pray, and the outcome we’ve been expecting deep in our hearts and minds does indeed occur. And that’s OK, for God gives us those hearts and minds, that intuition and intellect. They are a gift to us, and when we pray, even suspecting we know the outcome, that prayer still counts. Anytime we turn our hearts to the Lord, talk to him, dialogue with him, ask something of him, that prayer is a holy moment.
But it’s a different feeling entirely when we are praying with abandon, with utter surrender, knowing there is nothing beneath our feet and we might indeed fall, and we are entirely dependent on the Lord for whatever outcome is to be.
In those moments, it can be really hard to stay strong and keep the faith that all will be well, that we will not flounder or fall in the midst of our walk.
The apostle Peter knew something about this. Matthew 14:22-33 tells us he and the other disciples were in the boat, battered by waves, and there was Jesus calling to him. Come. And so he did. Perhaps Peter wasn’t thinking at first, caught up in the moment and so excited that he didn’t really consider the fact that he was walking on water. Or maybe he thought there was a floating platform or a sandbar beneath Jesus, something trick he couldn’t see.
Whatever he was thinking, very quickly Peter’s brain and his actions caught up with each other and doubt crept in. While moments before he, too, had been walking on the water, he began to sink, slipping through the waves. “Save me!” he cried (v. 30). Jesus held out his hand. Oh, you of a little faith.
I have been in those moments, walking along, fully expecting success. But then doubts creep in and I falter.
Peter shows us what to do in those moments: Look to Jesus.
In my own paralyzing moment, as my daughter lay struggling for breath, that’s the only truth I clung to: I had nothing but Jesus. Nothing but fervent prayer and hope. Nothing but faith. What else could I do but surrender to his mercy and beg?
We humans are so funny. We often walk blithely along, expecting everything will go as planned. I am incredibly guilty of this. But things most decidedly do not always go as planned.
Every breath we take is a gift from God. Every step, every blink of the eye, every heartbeat. Every single bit of it. We are entitled to nothing.
We are incredibly blessed that God loves us so much that those of us who believe in Jesus as our savior can experience eternal life in his kingdom.
But we must never forget that we serve the Alpha and the Omega, the creator who brought light out of darkness.
It’s a humbling truth. But from that humility, we can find pure, true faith. He is the one, the only one. Now and for always.
Have you ever done an Advent daily devotional? It’s a helpful and personal way to experience the four weeks leading up to Christmas. Please consider my new book, Preparing Our Hearts, designed to start Dec. 3 through Christmas. Available as an ebook and paperback: click here.
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