The Incredulity of Faith

I failed my bar exam.

I was shocked.  I was incredulous.  I was hurt.  I was disappointed. Then reality set in and the questions ensued.

Of course, there were the obvious and practical questions: Did anyone else fail?  What would I do with my life? What would I tell my future employer?  How would my parents react?

But another onslaught of inquiries grated at my soul: Why would God lead me — like, literally, lead me (I’ll have to share the whole testimony another time) to this critical point in my legal career, just to (seemingly) drop me?  I had personally seen His hand masterfully orchestrate situations that I could not even have imagined and that I had little to do with.  I had seen His provision, protection and providence.  I could point to multiple incidences of answered prayer, multiple times when I wanted to throw in the towel but God kept on nudging me or would open another door…  So… where was God in this situation, and if He was here, what was He doing?  For me, studying law was more than just a possible profession — I saw it as a spiritual calling.  So when I found out I failed, so did my faith.

Is He consistent?  Could He be trusted?

Is He consistent?  Could He be trusted?

I thought back to a brief Bible study I did.  A few weeks before my bar exam one morning, when I really should have been doing homework and/or studying for my bar exam, I just felt like having an impromptu devotional and spending time with God.  Some may consider it clever procrastination or trying to appease God, but whatever — I heard a sermon the Sabbath before about Elijah and I wanted to study the story of the widow of Zarephath more closely. I kept reading 1 Kings 18 and arrived at the story of Elijah praying for rain and sending his servant out to look seven times (1 Kings 18:41-48).  Each time the servant went to look for rain and returned to his master with the bad news, Elijah would tell him, “Go again.”

“Go again.”

Go again?

Those two words spoke to me.  I realized that the only thing that could have convinced Elijah to continually keep sending his servant is what I now call the “incredulity of faith.”  I know it sounds like an oxymoron.  I thought that faith was just believing God and what He said He would do — and yeah, that’s a part of it.  But faith is trusting in God to the point that you are incredulous when God hasn’t come through.  Another Christian lawyer friend said it this way: “That’s why you have little children who will pray for something crazy and be shocked that they didn’t receive it.”  Each time the servant came back, Elijah must have thought to himself, “This doesn’t make any sense.  I don’t believe it.  God has to come through.  Go again.”  I mean, Elijah could have stopped and said, “Maybe it wasn’t God’s will” — a Christian caveat many are wont to use — but he didn’t.

We often use this “Christian caveat” as a pious way to guard ourselves against disappointment and to save face (to save our faith!) in case God doesn’t come through in just the way we wanted to.  It’s a defense mechanism in the aims of protecting ourselves because, in reality, faith makes us vulnerable, and the bigger the request, the more vulnerable we are.  The bigger the request, the bigger the faith, the higher the risk of being laughed at, disillusioned, disappointed or seriously hurt.  The higher the faith, the greater the fall and the greater the possibility for failure.  Faith causes us go out on a limb.  Great faith is dangerous.  And so to mitigate against the gaping exposure and vulnerability and potential failure, we use what I like to call “Christian caveats.”

But not Elijah.  His faith was obstinate.  He was incredulous.  He told his servant: “Go again” and we get the sense that Elijah would have kept sending his servant to go look for rain no matter how long it would take.  He had heard the sound of the abundance of rain in his spirit.  Thus, he would keep on sending his servant until his reality matched with the Word God had given him.

Sometimes when God has promised us something, we are tempted to distrust Him when the thing does not immediately come to pass as He promised.  I think in many of those situations, God asks us to summon incredulous faith — a faith that takes Him at His word — and says, “Go again.”

Sometimes when God has promised us something, we are tempted to distrust Him when the thing does not immediately come to pass as He promised.  I think in many of those situations, God asks us to summon incredulous faith — a faith that takes Him at His word — and says, “Go again.”

Likewise, in this passage, I sensed God telling me to “Go again” and do the retake exam.  The retake exam was not something I was ready to do because it was in two weeks and I was tired — eight months of bar school, stress, anxiety and chronic insomnia will do that to you.  But I had seen God move before, and He had given me a glimpse of what He had in store for me.  I was still in disbelief that this was how the story would end.  I too had heard an abundance of rain in my spirit.  So, like Elijah, I needed to “Go again” until my reality matched with the Word God had given me.

I need more faith.  I’m tired of living a faithless life.  A life where I ask for things and kinda half expect them to happen but am also willing to accept if they don’t happen.  A life where I hope God answers but I am not certain or persuaded that He will or does answer.  A life where I know He can but I’m not convinced that He will.  My faith is weak and wishy washy.

I remember my first time taking the bus to a friend’s house for Monday night Bible study.  I had told the bus driver which street I wanted to get off at.  He told me that he would let me know when we were near.  So I took a seat and waited.  And waited.  It was a longer drive than I had expected and I started to get anxious. I then quieted myself by saying, “He did say that he would tell me when we got there.”  So I kept seated.

Never did it cross my mind that maybe I should remind him or that maybe he had forgotten and passed it or maybe he was confused about my destination or maybe I wasn’t clear.  He said that he would tell me so I believed that he would tell me.  I was content to sit still and wait until I was told otherwise.

I then realized that I had more faith in the bus driver than I did in God.

I had more faith in the driver’s ability to get me to my destination than I do in God’s ability to get me to my ultimate destination.  What a rebuke.

So many times I question the Lord:  Why Lord why?  When Lord when?  I feel like I need to remind Him.  Maybe I wasn’t clear.  Maybe He had forgotten.  And I badger Him instead of sitting still and finding rest in the comfort of His character.

I badger Him instead of sitting still and finding rest in the comfort of His character.

I don’t regret pulling away from my studies that day to study the Bible, because I learned something about faith (and the fact that I didn’t have nearly enough).

I don’t know what the results of this retake will be.  I hope they will be favourable.  But I realize that perhaps, with this retake of the bar exam, God is telling me, “Go again.”  So I obey.