THE FAITH TO FORGET

        This week I sat down with two of my closest friends as we discussed a major project that looms before us. The words that flowed between us were words that challenged me and moved me away from the safe comforts of what I know and into the vast waves of unpredictability.

Words that held truth, the kind that doesn’t always inspire, but the kind of truth that allows you to drown just long enough for you to feel the cold water slipping down your throat, the realization you’ve grown lax and are being pulled under. The kind of truth that keeps you alive.

There in the protection of friendship, ideas could be freely challenged, forced to the breaking point to see if they are worthy to build upon. In the moment, when our ideas are challenged many times we take it personally. Yet would you rather have your ideas challenged now or after you exposed yourself fully to the world and said, “This is my creation!”?

As the conversation wound to a close, I felt overwhelmed. I had worked so hard, only to feel like a cascade of changes and additional things were required of me. Why did I feel this way? I worked hard to come this far, so why are a few challenging questions unraveling me?

I need the faith to forget.

Sean and I begin most of our endeavors with faith larger than reality. We take on ideas much larger than we could bare, but in our naivety we accomplish them because we believed we could do it from the start and no one told us we had lost our minds.

Faith is not always believing in what you can’t see. Sometimes I need faith to forget what the world calls wise, so I can be foolish again. Not the kind of foolish that leads to stupidity, the kind of foolish that defies the limitations we put on ourselves. I think we all could walk on water if we just had the faith to forget we aren't capable of walking on water.

I want that kind of faith. Faith that says yes to who I really am, not my circumstances or personal conflicts. I need the faith to forget I’m not capable, so I can start doing what no one said I could do. The kind of faith that rises to the challenges of others instead of drowning in the cold reality of my faithlessness.

 

That is the kind of faith I want. Faith to forget.