Afraid to Believe

I have a sneaking sympathy for Zacharias (see Luke 1:5-24). When an angel told him that his barren wife would have a child, his response was “Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”

I get it. I get it because sometimes I’m afraid to believe. I imagine his feelings at the time were something like this: “I’ve been praying for this for years. There is nothing my wife and I have wanted more. This has been our most deeply cherished hope. Now she’s past childbearing years and I think you’re telling me she will have a child. And, oh, how I desperately want to believe that. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what will happen to me and my faith if I believe that now and then it doesn’t happen. So please, help me.”

The angel responded: “thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”

I think I would have been grateful. I would have thanked God for something tangible to help me believe it really was from Him, something to help sustain my faith until a child was conceived. And then, throughout the pregnancy, with all the fears of complications and the many things that can go wrong so easily when an older woman has a child, it would have been a daily reminder of God’s promise.

I trust God. I really do. He makes me promises. Sometimes He makes me very specific promises. And I believe them. For the most part.

I have so many experiences where I trusted inspiration and it was clearly right. God tells me a friend needs me and I find out they do need me. God tells me what to do for them and it works. Or God tells me he’ll take care of my financial stress and then I get an unexpected promotion. He does that kind of thing all the time.

But sometimes, things don’t happen the way I think they’re supposed to. Sometimes that’s pretty easy to reconcile. There was the time I felt strongly to pursue a job. Every time I’d felt that before, I got the job. So I was excited, because I really wanted this one. And I prayed before, during and after the interview and felt really good about it. And then I didn’t get it. But God never actually told me I would get it. He just told me to pursue it. So that’s OK, right?

But every so often, it doesn’t work like that. Every so often I feel like God is telling me something that I desperately want (like an investigator is going to get baptized, or I’m going to meet my husband this year). And I believe it. And it doesn’t happen.

My reaction is usually not to doubt God. It’s easier to mistrust myself. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe He was just telling me to work towards it and I wanted to believe it was a promise that it would actually happen. But, then, there are times when I’ve clearly only felt “work towards it” and that felt different. So why did it feel so sure that time? People say “well maybe it’s what you needed at the time to get to where you were supposed to be.” No. I won’t accept that. God doesn’t lie to me. He won’t lie to me to get me to do something.

I’m a lawyer’s daughter. I’ve learned to break down wording. Things like “soon” and “but a small moment” are not legally defined lengths of time. “This will happen” without a qualifying timeline can mean it will happen in the next life. God can and does give very specific revelation. I don’t want to chicken out of fully receiving it. But I don’t want to be a sucker either.

So I hedge my bets. I leave myself an out. When God makes promises, I believe Him, but tuck away an alternate interpretation just in case. But where’s the line? Where’s the line between patiently, humbly submitting to the Lord, and insufficient faith? I don’t have the answer to that. I like to think the gap is narrowing with time, but I don’t know that it will ever disappear completely.