THE CENTURION’S FAITH

As I watch the gray winter skies fly by from inside the car, I am filled with a longing for green, for warmth, for sun and sand. I’m weary. Tired of struggle, tired of fighting, tired of trying. I feel empty and full of longing. Longing for another time and place. A place that is just easier to be in than the place I’m currently at.

There are days when I find this Christian walk nearly impossible. Days when I can’t imagine what it is that God wants from me. Days when I can only see my abject failure to manifest in any way the Christ who is suppose to live within me. I want to cry . . . “It’s too hard! I can’t do it!” But what can I do? I mean it’s not like you can quit . . . you can’t really go backwards, return to a time when faith was a little less demanding.

I read of the faith of the Centurion, and I want to be that . . . I want to believe like him.

The last two years I’ve been on a journey that has involved much loss, much change and some betrayal. It has been a hard, hard path to walk, and it continues. Like the siege of an Old Testament city, it feels unrelenting. I am unable to hold on to the fleeting peace that comes in those rare moments that I am able to connect to that Christ that dwells within. My head reminds me of what I know about Christ – that He is worthy of the Centurion’s faith! He does not desert me. No matter how alone I feel, I am not alone.

When my children were young, I would often counsel them to consider their feelings carefully. Feelings are fickle, intense overwhelming and yet, in the end, fleeting and ephemeral. It’s easy to give into the temptation of defining our relationship with God by those few exquisite moments when there’s no denying His presence. My faith comes a lot easier when I’m feeling the presence of the Lord around me. It’s harder to feel faith-filled when struggling with worry and sadness.

This walk of discipleship demands a relationship that goes beyond the “feel good” experiential. The past two years, this walk has required that I grow in my faith. It has put me out in a worrisome desert for reasons that I know nothing about. I want to be like the Centurion. I love the way he simplifies the miraculous by reducing it to what he knows and understands. He is a soldier. When one with authority gives orders, those living under that authority follow those orders. For him it was simple as that.

I don’t seem to be there yet. I’m still trying to find a way to wear this hard time with a little more grace. I’m trying to be less dependent on my feelings as a measure of my relationship with God. Instead, I cling to His word as I try to pass through this hard time.

— Anonymous

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist