Faith and Fate
I was pouring out my troubles to a wise friend. My professional career had hit a brick wall, organisational politics meant I could no longer stay in my job. My face just didn’t fit anymore. It felt unfair and I saw no remedy. My friend looked at me shrewdly. “Are you going to be a victim or a victor?” she said. Her words brought me up short. Instead of a bland “there, there, never mind, I’m sure something will turn up” type of response her words made me realise how passive and self-pitying I was being. I was seeing myself as a victim of fate, not a child of God through faith.
Fate, the belief that events are beyond our control, predetermined by some higher force, is a common idea which has spanned many centuries and cultures. Call it Kismet, the Universe or written in the stars, it’s all the same. Fate breeds fatalism. What will be, will be, regardless of anything I can do.
Faith is very different. Faith calls us to pray and work to change the world, not simply accept it as it is. Faith moves mountains, heals the sick and raises the dead. Its foundation is the knowledge that God is good and that he acts on our behalf. Confronted by evil or despair, instead of a passive shrug of the shoulders, faith brings change. Faith is active. Like Bartimaeus it calls out till Jesus answers, and like the woman with an issue of blood it pushes through the crowd till it can touch him.
I had slipped into seeing myself as helpless in the face of greater forces. What could I do when powerful people were calling the shots? Fate makes us victims, faith makes us victors. Where fate tells us to lie down and die, faith brings us to our feet. Where fate bids us capitulate to the powers we can see, faith sees the limitless power of the invisible God.
The Bible tells us of people whose faith became a pivot around which history turned. They were men and women like us but who refused to bow to fate. Elijah lived at a time of wickedness and idolatry in Israel that infected the whole country from the King and Queen downwards. True worship had been abandoned and true believers persecuted. What could one man do against a whole system of government and a state-sponsored religion? Elijah could have kept his head down, but what he did was faithfully pray. James tells us that his determined prayer was effective and the drought which followed set the stage for his confrontation with the false prophets, a confrontation which confirmed that the Lord, not Baal, was God.
Faith activates prophecy. When God brings a promise, we have to embrace it, pray it, and thank God for it. We shouldn’t wait passively for it to happen. Jeremiah had prophesied that Israel’s exile in Babylon would come to an end after 70 years. Daniel knew that the 70 years was almost complete and the promised restoration was due but he didn’t just sit back and expect it to happen. Instead, Daniel chapter 9 tells us that he prayed, confessing Israel’s sin and pleading for God’s help. Sure enough the restoration came. Simeon, in Luke chapter 2, is another great example of faith that puts more trust in God than in circumstances. Like many others Simeon knew the Messiah would one day come to rescue Israel. But unlike most, he believed he would see this event in his own lifetime. Luke tells us that Simeon recognised in the baby that Mary and Joseph had brought to the Temple the long awaited Messiah. After holding hope in his heart for years he was finally able to hold it in his arms.
Just as faith can activate God’s promise, fear can obstruct it. When the Israelites first arrived at the borders of Canaan, the promised land, their fear of the inhabitants outweighed their belief in God’s help. As a result a whole generation missed their inheritance and died in the wilderness.
God wants our faith response. It matters that we take hold of his promise and expect to see it fulfilled. God’s promises are not fate. Many Christians passively wonder whether they will see revival in their lifetime as if it is beyond their ability to influence. But If we want to see the fulfilment of prophecy in our lives, in our nation, we cannot sit back and simply wait as if it will happen when it happens regardless of what we do. But when we turn from fate to faith and pray like Elijah, things change.
My wise friend’s challenge was uncomfortable but much needed. Seeing things as a victim was draining away my hope. But with faith, God’s triumph and God’s provision had to come. At a time when fear and chaos threaten will we be victims or victors? Along with a growing number of Christians around the world, now is the time to embrace faith.