By Michaela Payne, Charlotte Fellow 2020-2021
What does it mean to be a man/woman of faith?
This question was asked to me two months into the Charlotte Fellows Program. Now, slightly more than halfway through our time, I still think about it daily. I felt conviction over the fact that I haven’t ever given this “man/woman of faith” phrase more thought, and definitely haven’t ever thought about it in relation to myself. At the Highlands Ability Battery Career Development weekend, I was challenged on my conception of faith.
The Career Development weekend is spent sorting through a in-depth ability assessment with the goal to better discern the type of work we are naturally suited towards, as well as pursue the Lord’s opportunities for us. I was asked this question after a lengthy analysis of my results followed by feeling like nothing was made clear regarding my career. Basically, it was more complicated than someone just telling me what I should do—which is kind of what I was hoping for. Instead, the leader of the weekend asked me: when the Lord is not revealing your path to you, can you be a woman of faith? At first, I thought to myself “Of course! I have always considered myself a woman of faith; I’ve been apart of the Christian faith since I was young”. I then realized that what he was asking was much bigger than that. It wasn’t a question of “do you identify with the Christian faith” as a general broad brush over my identity. It was a question regarding daily decision making—the very things that will make up our lives and, therefore, our careers. The challenge in this question wasn’t about my theological reasoning behind what God I believed in—It regarded my active dependance and trust that the Lord will make good on my life; on my career. It wasn’t asking if I can be a woman of just the Christian faith, but a woman of daily faith. I realized that I wasn’t doing this in most aspects of my life.
When Google searched, there are two definitions of faith that I believe many Christians interchange when casually referring to the title “a man/woman of faith”: Faith (1): complete trust or confidence in someone or something Faith (2): strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. When properly referring to someones “faith” we mean the latter, but when referring to being a man/woman “of faith”, we mean the former. Yet, despite the proper use, often in our heads we switch definition 1 and 2 around, which leaves us with a misunderstanding of this title “of faith”. Instead of meriting the title “of faith” to mean a person who lives each and every day in active dependance on God, many Christians (myself included) have trivialized it to the level of it simply being a name-tag of Christian morality. To be a man or woman of faith is not a name-tag to stick on when wanting to describe a given person’s moral situation. Instead it is a bold declaration of the life-style of a person with unmeasurable trust that the Lord is wise, good, and in control. Not to be carelessly interchanged for the lukewarm Christian to use on any given day.
So if not a descriptor of our religious affiliation, then what? Who does the Bible describe as a person of faith? First, it gives us a new definition: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Assurance and conviction: a lifestyle. Hebrews 11 goes on describe some of the most radical acts of faith, listing the most recognized Biblical characters: Sarah, Abraham, Moses, David and so on. When we look at the lives of these people we see that each decision they make—to prepare for a son, sacrifice a son, lead thousands into the desert, or lead thousands into battle—they asked the Lord for guidance and then trusted in his plan. These Biblical characters were the medium God selected to fulfill His promise. They are the method in which God restored humanity. And these are the people described as men and women of Faith. This is a title reserved by God for his obedient children. And now, God has selected us, His sons and daughters, to be the beneficiaries of that title (Ephesians 1).
Are we not to do the same as those who came before us? How do we begin to take steps to be known as people of Faith? One step is by spending time engaged in conversation at the feet of the Lord. If we remain consistent there, by default we will make every decision at His feet. We can bring our victories, doubts, failures, little and big choices to Christ. We don’t have to just hope that it’s right, which is what I tend to fall guilty of. Instead, we rely on the Lord in every decision and know that he is leading us according to his will.
In Fellows, we ask a lot of the questions: What do you believe about God? The church? What are we doing (career wise and otherwise)? What do we want to be doing? Should we do it forever? As we ask these questions I begin to think, what would someone from Hebrews 11 do? While I may not have all those answers, the Fellows has challenged us to pursue who we want to be on a larger scale than just our career. I know I want to be a person known for their faith; complete unadulterated trust that the Lord’s will is being done and it will be for good. How do we start? I think it’s as simple as one day at a time. Eventually, days of dependency lead into a lifetime. What does it mean to be a woman of faith? It means to be a woman of daily dependance and trust in the Lord—every decision.