FAITH
I love to have conversations with folks about faith, but a young person in particular. I have been imagining what it would be like to be in the midst of a group of youth, once again, when years ago I had been a Sunday School teacher at a church in Richmond.
At the time I was just 10 years or so older than they. I can still remember the wall flowers, the edge huggers, the eager ones and the faceless ones.
I also remember being just as much concerned with myself. Is this a self critique? I was a young one, too. I was yet discovering me, and God’s word. But I hope that will always true of me!
A vivid memory is after a particularly engaging Bible Study one of them came up to me and asked,
“Why are YOU a bus driver?”
He was mystified by the paradox of having been led into the presence of God… by a bus driver.
You know where my mind goes?
To Jacob waking up after that dream, and building an altar there. Because he thought he’d fallen asleep where heaven and earth meet.
Not realizing that it was he who was where heaven and earth would meet one day.
It wasn’t a place.
It was a who.
Jesus said,
“You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.”
He then added,
“Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”
— John 1:50–51
Genesis 28:12 echoes it.
There was another experience I remember.
A young man in that Sunday School class had called me to ask about my thoughts on Philippians 3:12:
Not that I have already obtained all this… but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…
I remember being filled with such excitement.
God was allowing me a view into this young life…
that he was bringing near to himself.
Young people, children as yet.
Would we hope they might object to such a classification?
I remember the other day telling a young man, he was in grade 7, that if he didn’t behave on my bus, I’d treat him like a child and make him sit up at the front with me and the K–grade 2’s.
And his answer was,
“But I am a child.”
His name was Andy.
I hated Andy.
Now settle down for a minute there… you say, “You didn’t HATE him!?”
But oh yes I did.
I have read and re-read the book of 1 John, looking for loopholes.
There are none.
Love is the only option.
When Andy said that to me, something shifted, and love filled my heart for him.
My heart was broken for this young man.
For whatever reason, he didn’t want to grow up.
Caught between child and adult…
and holding onto something.
Am I telling you something?
Please… no.
I’m asking you to mull this over.
There is a now.
There is a today.
Who are they… today?
I mean, being a child—is that ok?
What about those times we scold by accusing the whining youngster of acting childish?
Is there space for children to be children?
To be present in their now?
But this is about faith.
One wonders how to bring about a curiosity about the things of faith.
I remember a scripture:
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11
Another comes to mind, Hebrews 5:11–14.
That sense that we ought to become mature.
And yet Jesus says we must come as a child.
Are these a contradiction?
But what about those youth?
The ones raised in Christian homes.
The ones who aren’t.
What brought them there to my Sunday School class?
This brings to mind a story.
The Octopus Story
My son Ashton grew up going to The Vancouver Aquarium. Very early on we learned that the best thing to do for him was to get year passes. It took the pressure off trying to “get our money’s worth.”
He could look at whatever caught his interest.
We would walk along at our own pace. He would sometimes run ahead, but not too far out of reach. Every once in a while he would come running back to make sure we were still there.
All of his discoveries were his own.
We just provided the environment.
Then there came a day when he was maybe 10 to 12 years old.
We were in that same routine.
One of the things I would have liked to see was the octopus.
They kept him in a small tank compared to the others.
Then one day… he was out!
Big. Red. Fully there.
Legs drifting down in front of us.
Fish swimming all around him.
And I wondered… why this great beast wasn’t eating the fish.
I saw a man with a name tag.
I asked him,
“Hey… how come the octopus ain’t eating the fish?”
He told me they kept it well fed.
It wasn’t hungry.
I wasn’t satisfied.
I turned to Ashton, who had already started moving on.
“Hey Ashton… how come the octopus isn’t eating the fish?”
It’s not so much what he said.
It’s how he said it.
He was bored.
I was interrupting him.
And he was completely certain.
“They eat crustaceans.”
Later I looked it up.
He was right.
That moment has stayed with me.
I was the one taken with the octopus.
Ashton… wasn’t.
(back to the room)
We’re in a room full of youth.
All of them aware of each other.
All of them carrying something.
Afraid of being seen too clearly.
And yet…
There’s no fence.
Just the open sea.
What holds someone back from stepping out into that?
If something doesn’t satisfy…
doesn’t “float”…
they move on.
They feel their way forward.
Sight.
Touch.
Sound.
Taste.
Smell.
And maybe something else.
The Bible says:
Apart from faith it is impossible to please God…
But what is that?
We don’t belong to those who shrink back.
But to those who have faith.
Faith…
It’s not easily defined.
People do what seems right in their own eyes.
But there is also such a thing as what is right in God’s eyes.
And somewhere in all of this…
I’m a fisherman.
What am I actually looking for?
Because if I’m fishing in the wrong place…
I’ll come up empty.
But if I’m where something actually lives…
Then maybe…
something appears.
Running Down Vimy 