This is a five-part series on allowing the wisdom of God to heal us from life’s disappointments:

Intro: The Art of Traveling Light

Part 1: How to Travel Light in a Heavy World: Wisdom Takes Time

Part 2: How to Travel Light in a Heavy World: Wisdom is Free

Wisdom Requires Faith

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

James 1:6-7

Our anniversary was the one and only time my husband Kenny stepped foot into a cruise ship.  He didn’t know what to expect because he’d never experienced something like it before.  If you read my previous post (Wisdom is Free), you should know by now that he didn’t quite enjoy his first cruising adventure.

It wasn’t just the confining spaces while on board with about a thousand people, give or take, but it also didn’t help visiting countries where he didn’t speak the language.  He is married to me and I am fluent in Spanish.   I guess there’s something about having to depend on another person to get around and to get interpretation from.  When we arrived at the Port of Limon, Costa Rica, we opted to get on a taxi for a quick tour of the city.  The driver barely spoke English, which meant I had to translate between them.

There was not a lot to sight-see.  The weather was also not cooperating with us, but we attempted to get as much as we could out of the moment.  We were informed that Limon (which is lemon in Spanish) ships millions of bananas northward every year.

What really was visibly missing, however, were  policemen.

By the end of our “tour,” our taxi driver inadvertently lets me know that Limon’s culture of violence keeps the city at the top of the “most crime” list in the Caribbean, perhaps due to the influx of tourists the port gets every week.  How do I translate that to Kenny whose skepticism was already making him nervous about taking a random tour from a taxi?

Right as our driver was telling me about the high rates of crime, we drove by an abandoned police station.  Thankfully, I was able to see the cruise ships from a distance and prayed we got there alive.

I also waited until we walked into the port to tell Kenny about everything the driver told us.

It took a lot of FAITH for us to get in a taxi in a foreign country for a “tour” of the city.  We could have been one of those honeymooners who get robbed, kidnapped, or killed a la Fatal Honeymoon.

But faith isn’t reckless, unless it is being supported by prayer, wisdom, counsel, and Scripture.  Wisdom requires faith.  We could argue that in our ignorance we were a bit hasty.  However, when we take a step of faith, we are not uneducated about the condition of our situation.   Our faith comes from practice, not from an arbitrary event.

If wisdom is the vessel to our final destination, then faith is the fuel which ignites our passion for eternity.   It took constant reaffirmation from God and decades for Abraham to eventually fulfill his role as the Father of Faith.  In Hebrews 11, known as the Hall of Faith, we are told the best definition of our faith in Christ and the testimonies of remarkable men and women of faith whose journeys weren’t always noteworthy to mention.  These people were as flawed and sinful as we are yet the Lord commends them for maintaining their faith intact.  They had their struggles and they doubted, but they persevered through the stormy waters.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Hebrews 11:1-3

If faith is our fuel, then The Word of God is the gas pump.  We are reminded of this on Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”  It takes wisdom to hear the Word and to choose to act upon it.  We are not capable of surviving a full trip without fuel, let alone when the seas get rough or the roads become uneven.

The Word of God is constant.  When we ask prayerfully, we are instructed not to waver like the seas.  This picture is painted for us a couple of times in Scripture.  In Ephesians 4:14, we are taught “the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” may turn us into infants who are “tossed back and forth by the waves.”

Then there’s Hebrews 10:22-23, which happens to be the mission statement of this blog,

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

There is no need in our wavering when we are standing confidently in the Word of God. 

The Word of God is powerful.  As the verse in Hebrews says, we must draw near with a true and genuine heart.  Unlike people, God’s power as our Creator allows Him to know the condition of our hearts when we pray.  In Proverbs 5, Solomon warns us of the immoral woman whose mouth may be “smoother than oil,” but in the end “she is sharp as a two-edged sword.”

What is sharper than her?  What can eradicate sin?

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

We serve a mighty God who is able to destroy the world with a simple command, but this Psalm reminds us of how much He loves us.  He may have the power to annihilate our world, but He also has the power to save us.  And He did.

with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

Psalm 136:12

Finally,

I stumbled across some wise words this morning and I wanted to share them,

Thinking this morning about what we let in. There is a difference between suffering and allowing suffering to sink us.

We can go through pain learning, leaning in, listening, taking away the parts that make us wiser and kinder and smarter. We ask, “What can this teach me? What does this show me about myself? What have I learned about God?” When the sun finally rises, we are stronger because we paid attention during our dark night of the soul.

Or we can go through pain victimized, resistant, defensive, furious, pushing so hard against the current that it never takes us anywhere new. Rather than partner with the pain, we absorb it, consume it, sink under it, failing to learn and listen and consequently delaying our own healing.

We will all suffer. It is not exceptional or rare; it is absolutely the human condition. The question is: what will we do with our pain? Did we accidentally let too much in and now it is our entire substance? Or can we take in what we need, learn and listen to it, then send it back out?

God created us resilient enough to sail our ship. We are stronger than we ever thought possible and Jesus never leaves our side. We are brave enough to stay afloat. In the stormiest season, we need not sink. You may feel like you are sinking, but that is just the storm. Weather it, because you are able. Sail on, sisters.

-Jen Hatmaker

Just in case you were wondering about our honeymoon,  we ended up hiring a taxi driver when we disembarked in Panama City.  We were so glad we didn’t let our past experience oscillate us from doing so because we had the best tour ever this time around!  It even included seeing the Panama Canal.