Emily Lyons

“The stone that the builders rejected is become the chief cornerstone.”
—Psalm 118:22

Dear Friends,

Mary Magdalene told the disciples that she had seen Jesus, risen from the dead. But they didn’t believe her.

Jesus then appeared to two of the eleven, who affirmed what Mary had reported. Still, the disciples didn’t believe.

When Jesus finally appeared to them all, he upbraided them for their lack of faith.

Many times in the Gospels, people demand that Jesus show them a sign. They had heard that he had healed the sick and restored sight to the blind, but they wanted to witness these things for themselves.

Others who did witness them refused to believe their eyes. This man must be a charlatan, they reasoned, or possessed by a demon. Again and again, Jesus responds to these skeptics by asking, where is your faith?

Imagine a relationship in which one person constantly demands reassurance from the other that they really love them. Nothing the other person does can ever put the first’s insecurity to rest.

Now imagine a relationship in which one person only demonstrates their love for another through grand gestures. Neither of these sounds like a great relationship dynamic to me.

Then why do we sometimes expect our relationship with God to work like this?

In Dynamics of Faith, theologian Paul Tillich writes, “man is driven toward faith by his awareness of the infinite to which he belongs.” On a deep level, we sense that we are God’s, and that God is always with us in our very being. It cannot be otherwise.

However, having awareness of something is not the same as seeing something, although we often confuse seeing with being aware.

We, with our limited capacity for awareness, do things like wandering around the house in bewilderment, searching for our glasses when they are perched on top of our head. We’re good at missing what is right in front of us, because we were busy focusing our attention in the wrong place.

Herein lies the trouble with a faith that requires signs to sustain it. After all, if God did give us a sign, would we even realize it? Worse, seeking signs from God in everything inevitably leads to ascribing meaning to meaningless things.

What if, instead of waiting for a sign of God’s unending love, we simply chose to believe in it?

In Christ,

—Emily