ARE WE THERE, YET?

Our family was headed off on vacation. We were traveling from our home in Brussels down to Switzerland. I remember sitting in the back seat of our station wagon, studying the rise and fall of the telephone lines as they moved from pole to pole, and asking (repeatedly!), "Are we there yet?" The journey, for this 3rd grader, was a waste. The only thing I was interested in was arriving.

The church is often spoken of as a community whose purpose is to get people "there." We think of the church as a community where people have faith. They've made a decision to trust the grace and truth of God in Jesus.

Some of us have a robust, life-transforming faith in God and in Jesus as the Son of God...Savior and Lord. Many of us can explain how we came to this place of faith, and others of us would struggle to explain it: we just have faith (or it has us!).

Here is what I want you to hear: many of us in the church aren't "there." Oh, we have these moments when we trust, when we move forward in faith, when things seem clear, but often we find ourselves on a journey in search of faith. Our glimpses of faith are often partial. We are like a visitor to Denali National Park who sees the mountain, briefly, and then the view is obscured again by thick clouds that settle in for days.

I tell you this because those of us who don't have "it" wonder if this is the place for us. We hear others who seem so confident, so certain, and we feel like someone who is afraid of heights and ends up in sky diving class. "Do I even belong here?" we ask ourselves.

The church is a community on the way more than it is a community that has arrived. Some of us have faith but many of us are seeking it. We are, as Dorothy C. Bass and Susan Briehl suggest in their book On Our Way (Upper Room), "following Jesus, learning to believe along the Way. On any given day, we may or may not 'have faith.' We may not believe in love or build up from the ruins. We may or may not doubt or dispute or lose heart or complain."

This is a place for those who have the gift of faith, and it is a community for those who are seeking faith. Bass and Briehl write: "But we do follow. We do study. We do explore and engage, attend and interpret, rehearse and enact. And as often as we can, we do turn off the lamp, climb out onto the roof, and behold the inexhaustible sky."

In Romans 4:20, Paul talks about the Old Testament patriarch, Abraham, as a model of faith: "He didn't hesitate with a lack of faith in God's promise, but he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God." The full picture, though, shows us Abraham and Sarai laughing at the promises of God. They ended up giving up on the promises of God, and developed their own plan for starting a family by using a servant girl as a surrogate mother. It took Sarah and Abraham a long time to get to the point where faith in God filled them to the point that it shaped who they were and how they lived.

Wonder if this place is for you since you haven't gotten "there" yet? Yes, this place is for you.

Honestly, there are days when I have a tough time seeing the mountain...but I walk on, I serve on, I sing on, trusting that the clouds will pull back and I'll see God with a faith-full heart.

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark Fenstermacher