Divine Pity

Grant us grace, LORD, grant us grace. For we are sorely sated with scorn.  Psalm 123:3  Robert Alter

Grant – How did you come to believe?  I’m not asking how you came into religion.  That happens mostly by drifting through cultural or family expectations.  No, I’m asking something else.  How did you realize that God had something to say to you, that you had something to say to Him?  How did that happen?

Abraham Heschel provides some insight (we’ve looked at this often):

“Thus, awareness of God does not come by degrees: from timidity to intellectual temerity; from guesswork, reluctance, to certainty; it is not a decision reached at the crossroads of doubt.  It comes when, drifting in the wilderness, having gone astray, we suddenly behold the immutable polar star.  Out of endless anxiety, out of denial and despair, the soul blurts out in speechless crying.”^[1]

Paul writes, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”[2] (Romans 10:17).  As Westerners, we might read Paul’s statement as a bit of apologetic argument, that is, faith progresses from hearing toward believing.  But then we notice that the verb (comes) is italicized.  That means it isn’t in the Greek text.  Maybe Paul isn’t giving us a shortened version of the “Roman road” steps to faith.  Maybe he and Heschel agree.  Faith explodes into our lives in some kind of overwhelming encounter, some emotionally charged experience that leaves us convinced of God’s presence and perhaps His care and His demand.  Maybe faith isn’t the rational, step-by-step, evidence you must believe sort of arguments that are so popular with evangelists and theologians.  Maybe it’s much more like a blow to the soul, and suddenly the world is different.

Of course, that doesn’t mean all the explanations, articulations, and manifestations are instantly available.  That process is a lifetime of work.  It also doesn’t mean that I can explain how it happened, as if all that were necessary is a rational recounting of each connected moment.  It means I had some kind of experience.  That is undeniable.  What the experience means is the rest of the story.  And it’s easy (for me, at least) to get lost in the “rest of the story” and forget the opening crescendo, to concentrate on making sense of it instead of relishing the initial blow to my self-consuming ego.  Perhaps there’s more to remembering than I thought.  Perhaps that’s why YHVH constantly reminds His people of the opening trumpet blast, and why the feasts and festivals are designed to be experienced again.

So, how did you come to believe?  Remember!  Remember that great tidal wave of God that knocked you down before it lifted you up.  Grant us grace.

Topical Index:  faith, reason, experience, remember, Romans 10:17, Psalm 123:3

[1] Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 75.

[2] At least the NASB editors added a footnote indicating this could be read “concerning Christ.”