By Kaye Cooper
Arlington, Texas
I have had a hard time understanding just what it means to have faith in my brothers and sisters. I am not a particularly naive person. I learn from experience, and that includes learning who I can trust and who has failed to exhibit himself worthy of trust. As an adult with these valuable lessons under my belt, I came face to face two or three years ago with the fact that Jesus urged his followers to have faith in one another. (1574:5) It stopped me in my tracks, and I began to ponder what he could mean. Was I supposed to allow unscrupulous people to take advantage of me repeatedly in fulfillment of a rule of conduct? Was I to ignore the obvious evidence of human behavior and become naive? Was I supposed to disregard a person’s apparent bad habits and unreliability and trust him to be and do things that are apparently not a part of his behavior pattern?
As these questions plagued me, I did what I have found to be the most effective thing in such circumstances. I prayed. Not so much the traditional and specific request in a designated prayer time (although I did that too), but more the investment of my soul’s desire in an intense longing for an answer. When I ask in that way, I do indeed receive. Over the years, insights have occurred, some small, some more outstanding. It is only now that I feel enough of a start on understanding to be able to share some thoughts in writing.
A Change of Attitude
To begin with, having faith in someone is not a rule of conduct that one can adhere to. Faith comes from one’s sincere feelings. It cannot be “play-acted.” We can’t force ourselves to have faith in our brothers because we know Jesus said we should. We have to behave out of whatever level of faith we are capable of at the moment. It is very comforting to understand that our ideals of faith are always going to outstrip our current level of faith. Any change in us toward having more faith is a change in attitude. That sincere attitude change results in a change in our actions. Rather than attempt to force ourselves to change behavior, we can more profitably contribute to this growth by praying for a change of attitude, an enlargement of understanding, and an enhancement of faith-power. We can read, think about, and discuss with friends what it means to have faith in others. We can attempt to perceive what it would be for the individual situation we are in at the moment. We can want with all our heart and soul to grow in our trust and faith of others.
Jesus was not naive. He extended his faith in Judas with full knowledge of the danger he was courting and the odds against success. Naivete would have said, “Everything will work out as I want it to. I just know Judas won’t betray my trust.” But I think Jesus said, “I know that there is a great likelihood that Judas is incapable of responding to my teaching and my relationship with him, but he is worth the risk. I will trust him to respond and grow.”
Much of Jesus’ expenditure of faith in men resulted in salvaged mortals. As an example, very few would have expected the tax collector Matthew to be interested in or to respond to Jesus, yet Jesus’ faith in him was very successful. Jesus stretched his faith to the limit of reasonability in Judas, and Judas failed to live up to Jesus’ faith in him. (But perhaps that was not the end of the story. Perhaps Judas did respond and grow. Perhaps Judas too has been saved). Faith Is Active.
At any rate, faith in others is not simply a trusting naivete. It involves seeking to understand the motives of others and consistently looking for and commenting on the best in them. Jesus saw the possibilities in the two prostitutes who propositioned him at Corinth. He saw that their motives were not low, that desperation had driven them to that life. He had faith that they had the capacity and soul desire for growth. The result was two redeemed lives. (pp. 1472-3) Faith in our brothers involves a trust in their ability to grow. We tend to look at people and situations as static. If we project change, it is on the basis of the characteristics which people are displaying at the moment. When one is surrounded by stagnant people, perhaps that is a reasonable expectation.
Now that my life has become filled with alive and growing people, I am constantly amazed. Situations are always turning out better than I expect. My experience with spiritually growing people justifies relatively optimistic faith in what they can be and become. People repeatedly grow beyond reasonable predictions – before my very eyes! My faith can’t seem to keep up with reality-or maybe my faith in them even causes some of the growth that surprises me. If we think back on situations in which others have had faith in us, we can recognize the effect of one person’s faith in another. Faith in us causes us to want to live up to that faith, inspires in us a belief that we can be more than we are, spurs us to do our best by a sense of responsibility (In the best meaning of that word). Jesus valued people so much and had so much faith in their ability to grow and their sincere desire to do so, that he spent himself in serving them. As a result, people all around him became more than they were, more than they had ever hoped to be.
Faith Errors
Some of the confusion about having faith in others may stem from two easy-to-make errors. One of these errors is to confuse faith in growth with expectations. To have faith in another’s capacity and desire for growth is a different matter from expecting that a person will behave in a specific way in a particular situation at a definite time. Someone may on occasion fulfill such defined expectations, but more often the behavior of another person does not fit our specified demands. The temptation then is to view that as a failure-even to assume that having faith in people does not do any good (does not have the desired results of getting them to act as we wish).
Even growing people are not going to grow according to our expectations for their growth. Our faith has to expand beyond those limitations. This type of situation also involves a second misunderstanding about faith. When we have expended faith in our brothers, perhaps time, and again we may eventually come to feel that our faith was wasted or that we were a fool for having faith in that person. Neither of those is true. Our faith is never wasted, nor are we a fool for having it. We may, because of our immature status in the universe, bestow faith in unwise ways; but, after all, everything we do is less than perfect. We can expend our faith and learn and grow from our experiences. Or we can withhold our faith for fear of making an error – and stagnate. We are responsible for acting as wisely, sincerely, and lovingly as we are capable of, and we can leave the out working of those acts to God.
There are many possibilities for success in giving faith where one’s expectations are not met and one’s faith seems to have been in vain. Some examples:
- There may be benefits for our brother which we cannot see.
- There may be benefits to someone else.
- The positive results may be delayed.
- This may be one in a series of similar events which will eventually bear fruit.
- We may have been too ambitious, too specific, or inaccurate in our expectations.
- We may be the primary beneficiaries of the situation.
Faith Wisdom
While accepting·that our application of faith is going to be less than perfect, we will want to seek ways to make it as wise as possible. Wisdom indicates that allowing unscrupulous people to take advantage of us or anyone else is in no one’s highest interest. Jesus seemed to distinguish between those who were malicious and those who were making sincere errors. The money changers in the temple are an example of the malicious and sinful. Jesus used force against the money changers to drive them out. The man beating his wife is an example of someone in sincere error. Jesus approached the man to ascertain his motives and what events had led up to this extreme action. He uplifted the man’s understanding of his relationship with his wife and left the man in the faith that he would grow beyond his violent reactions. (pp. 1888-91; 1470-71)
Even when the situation involves error and not maliciousness, we are not supposed to disregard a person’s apparent bad habits and unreliability and trust him to be and do things that are apparently not part of his behavior patterns. It is our desire that the faith we have in him will empower him to grow. We hope he will live up to a trust placed in him or that failure to do so will stimulate his growth. To have faith that a person be or do something too far beyond his present reach dooms him to failure without even the benefit of learning from that failure. For example, delegation of responsibility involves faith, but it must be dispensed wisely. It is a pattern of the universe to delegate responsibility as soon as maturity warrants. We can more nearly follow this pattern if we watch for the signs of readiness for the responsibility. It is the fourteen-year-old we trust with the lawn mower, not the four year old. Observing the signs of readiness is a wise thing to do. It does not mean one lacks faith in one’s brother.
We can benefit in our faith-wisdom by recognizing that faith is undermined by fear. It is our animal nature to fear the unknown (and faith always includes the unknown). We have the difficult job of balancing our judgment of readiness with our instinctive fear of the results of taking a faith step. Knowing that we have spiritual help in making our decisions is an extremely important remedy for the dilemma of choosing wisely while being pulled by fear on one side and desire to live by faith on the other.
The Source of the Faith Gift
It occurs to me that faith in our brothers is also faith in our Father. We can be absolutely confident that he has a plan for each of us, that we can and will grow. We can be certain that we all have helpers on every side and in every situation whose primary aim is to help us grow. We can depend upon him not only to safeguard us spiritually but to guide us constantly. We can step out over the chasm of the unknown, utterly supported by God’s promises: that we can and will grow to be like him, that all things work together for the good of those who love him. It is these assurances – our faith in our Father – which enables us to extend the gift of faith to our brothers.