Where Do You Turn When Life and Faith Collide?

I stay up late at night, thinking that by being awake when everyone else is asleep, I’m somehow keeping my family safe.

It’s a lie, and yet I feed it to myself every night.

It’s a pandemic unlike anything most of us have ever experienced.

We are in the middle of an unprecedented time. Self-quarantines, shelter in place orders, industries shut down, the stock market in crisis, unheard of unemployment numbers, death and sickness on a scale that most of us don’t usually pay attention to. There’s a real potential for economic collapse.  

And we’re worried about our friends and our family too. And we can’t even visit with them. Sit in their presence and feel the comfort of a loved one.

There’s a personal cost.

Life and Faith Collide

Sometimes our faith collides with our life. Meaning it’s hard to tie a pretty bow on what life is giving us. The usual, “Have more faith,” “Dig deeper,” and “Trust God more” messages just aren’t cutting it.

Our faith is shaken by what is happening in our lives.

It’s this intersection where life and faith collide that this blog speaks.

What do we do when life is overwhelming?

Where do you turn when your faith doesn’t seem to be enough?

Who is God in the midst of life?

These are some of life’s biggest questions. These are questions about faith.

At Life and Faith Collide, you can come with your doubts and your questions, with your fears and you will find comfort, encouragement, wisdom, and God’s voice through his word.

Questions we struggle with

What better example of life and faith colliding than during the midst of this coronavirus outbreak?

How do we make sense of all this?

How do people of faith have faith in the middle of a crisis?

And, how does this life make any sense in these times?

We’re faced with our mortality.

How do we view God?

This is when life and faith collide. 

A Crisis

I’m a mom of little kids. Our lives have been upended the past 4 months.

We’ve gone from no spring break, to crisis schooling, to no going back to school, to big emotions, to having to occupy 12 hours a day, to cooking and not cleaning, to endless summer break with no activities, to soon back to crisis schooling at home again.

It’s a struggle.

And at the heart of it is fear. Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things?

I stay awake at night, somehow feeling like a watchman in the night, keeping my children safe by being awake.

And yet they need me refreshed. They need me calm and well-rested so I can give them my best.

And yet “watching” at night (i.e. reading all the websites and community boards and Facebook) feels like I’m doing something. And yet it’s not. Not really.

Where do we turn?

I don’t plan on addressing all the questions I asked earlier, that’s the unfolding point of this blog. In the days and weeks and months to come, we will answer these questions. So stay with us and be sure to subscribe so we can make sense of life’s struggles together.

The solutions aren’t all neat and pretty and simple. They can’t all be tied up with a pretty bow. They will take time to unpack and address together.

But at the least, I want to leave you with the most important point of the Life and Faith Collide blog.

Standing together

In times like these, we need to turn away from the things that are causing us fear. Don’t think that by staring fear in the face, you will win.

We must choose to stand with the one who has driven out fear. The one who gives peace. The one who stands in the gap for us. We must stand with the one who truly makes sense of when life and faith collide. The answer is in a person, Jesus.

I pray you’ll join us here at Life and Faith Collide. Be a part of what’s going on. Let’s walk together and try to understand how to make sense of when life and faith collide together.

What are some questions about how your life and faith collide that you’d like to see addressed? Comment below.

Don’t forget to share this post with someone you know who could use the encouragement. (It’s easy to use one of the sharing buttons at the top or bottom of this post!)

For other posts addressing fear during this pandemic, check out:

• What I do at night when my mind is racing
• How I had to do something subversive when everyone else was panicking
• Where is God in our suffering?
• A simple way God gives us to get peace in our lives
• Strength for life’s trials