My church has been doing a study of the book of 1 John leading up to Easter. It’s such a rich little book, full of the foundations and mysteries of faith. And as I read it and study it out, it does indeed make me pause to examine what this thing is that fills me.

This past week we were on chapter 4, and as we discussed it, we got on the subject of searching for proof of faith…and by contrast, the extreme doubt of everything that entered with the modern period. And I began to wonder if the two were related.

In the late 19th century, science was expanding by leaps and bounds. Discoveries were made constantly, technology was rapidly evolving, and even literature was responding with amazing, fantastical books that explored the what-ifs of this changing world. What if we could travel to the center of the earth? Or under the sea? Or back in time?

Fueled by this new understanding, religion began asking the same questions. What if we could prove life after death? What if we could call up the spirits of those gone before? What if we could cross that veil? Cue the Spiritualism movement, with its tea party seances and knockings and rappings and rather frightening invitations, like when they would produce a child who couldn’t read or write and invite a spirit to use his body to convey a message with a pencil. Yikes!

I can understand why the idea of proving faith would appeal. Just think–it they could produce scientific evidence of heaven and hell, of the spiritual world, then who could possibly doubt them??

And yet directly after that came the skeptics. The movement that not only questioned faith, questioned God, but questioned their own existence. As a professor at my college said in a seminar one night, “I just can’t talk to you anymore if you’re going to say such things.” The skeptics took questioning to a whole new level, literally doubting everything. How do you know the sun will rise tomorrow? You can’t prove it will. How do you know you’re still you when you sleep? Are you still conscious of yourself? (Insert Roseanna replying in that seminar, “I’m not conscious of any moments when I’m not conscious of myself” and earning riotous laughter…)

Now I can’t say that these desires to prove and to doubt are actually linked, but I’m going to speculate. What if they are? What if, by searching for that proof of faith, we remove all certainty? What if when we question that most basic human yearning for something greater, we end up knowing nothing at all?

Questions are natural. Doubt is natural. The seeking of proof is natural. But the more I ponder it all in relation to faith, the more I think faith is not meant to ever be proven. Because faith is the proof. It’s the evidence of our hopes. It’s the substance of the unseen. Faith is itself a thing, a force, a form, an ideal. One of the few things that can exist purely within us.

Yes, people can question its existence. Just like they can question love, life, their very existence. They can question anything. But just because you doubt the laws of physics doesn’t keep them from operating. Just because you doubt yourself doesn’t mean you wink out of being. And just because you questions faith and God doesn’t mean they’re not real.

Some things demand proof, yes. And some things are the proof. I’ve come to the conclusion that faith is often miscategorized. Don’t ask me to prove that an apple will fall–take it instead as the proof of gravity. Don’t ask me to prove faith is real–take it instead as the proof of our hope in the Lord.

In our home school reading yesterday, we were reading the continued tale of the life of a Prussian missionary to England, George Müller. In the part of the story we got to, he had just gotten married to the sister of a British missionary, and together they had made a decision to abolish pew rents in their church–which meant their living went from guaranteed to based on the goodwill of their tiny congregation.

One night, all the food in the house was gone. But George and Mary set the table anyway. They sat down at the dinner hour. They held hands, and they prayed. Not asking God for food–but rather, thanking Him for all he had provided. Thanking Him.

Minutes after their prayer had ended, someone showed up at their door with a whole ham.

That story traveled with me throughout the day. When it comes to this life of ours, it’s so easy to focus on what we lack. The things we don’t have. The empty places. Sometimes, that’s all we can see. It surrounds us. It defines us.

Lack can be such a solid thing. Think about it: what’s the absence of light? Darkness. What’s the absence of heat? Cold.

Things that are literally nothing in themselves, yet their counterparts are so crucial to us that we feel their absence as a physical thing. And the same applies to things like wealth, food, clothing, cars, houses…all those other things. It applies too to family, friends, churches, school, education.

Things we, as human beings, crave. Need. And when we don’t have them, we feel it.

But George Müller taught me something today. He taught me that I shouldn’t just pray for the empty places to be filled. I should praise Him for having them. I should praise the Lord my God for taking away what I don’t need. I should praise Him for giving me life enough to want. I should praise him for being bigger than a lack, for being the eternal Being that is never absent.

And I should pray knowing that all those empty places…they’re just potential, waiting for Him. They’re just Him sweeping clean so He can give me what I really need. Because how could He, if I’d filled with junk the places He wanted to fill with promise? If the Müllers had scavenged for moldy bread, why would God have sent a feast?

What plates are we filling today with garbage, just to have something, when we should be waiting for Him to provide the right thing?

Lack will never be easy. It’s not meant to be. Not many people in this world ever seek it. But it finds us, in one form or another, always. There is always something more we want. Some hole we see in our lives. Some empty place.

But let’s try doing it like the Müllers did. Let’s set the table anyway. Let’s sit down together, join hands, and praise Him. Praise Him not just for what He will provide, but for the empty places just waiting for Him.

My computer is going blind. Which is to say, its video card is failing. It’s annoying on a good day–it won’t play video, crashes any time flash comes up–and kinda terrifying on a bad day when the screen just blinks out and then doesn’t recover quite as it should.

I still think of this thing as “my new laptop.” But really it’s four years old, which is about the life expectancy of a computer these days (let’s not get into why…). And as I sit here and contemplate getting a new one, I remember a conversation I had with my best friend five years ago. She was getting a new desktop computer, and while she was happy, she was also sorry to let her old one go. Because, she said, she thought that would be the computer she was using when she got published.

I’d never paused to think about the machines that might be tied to certain periods in my life, but it came back to me yesterday while I stared at my crazy-big-looking, wonky screen. And thought to think back on what I’d been through with this one.

I had a laptop in college, but it went kaput shortly after Rowyn was born, so just about five years ago. I wanted to get another right away, but finances didn’t permit. So I used an ancient, wheezing desktop for my projects then. That’s where I wrote a contemporary romance I pitched to Summerside, another contemporary romance that I thought would be a fun followup to it with another house. Yeah…both of those are just sitting in my Completed MSS folder now.

Then I finally got the laptop I wanted in the summer of 2009. Right before the ACFW conference. I picked based on battery life, and man was I impressed! I didn’t have to plug the thing in at all while I was away. Then I came home and got down to work on another historical, also destined to sit on the my harddrive for a while. Then, then I wrote Jewel of Persia on this lovely little Acer. I carried it around with me, writing in every room of the house, often making a desk of the end table in my living room. From there, I went to Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland. Which lead to Ring of Secrets.

Yeah–this is the computer I used to write these books that got me published. This is the computer that will be forever tied to my big break, to those thrill-inducing emails. The computer that has seen born and has saved for me the first books of mine to really get into readers’ hands.

Sniff, sniff. I love this little laptop!

So while this isn’t exactly a post that waxes philosophical on things of faith, it seemed appropriate to take a minute to be thankful for this gift. It’s just a computer. Just a collection of parts that can fail and get sick and find any number of ways to infuriate us daily. But it’s also a little machine that has made my life easier. That has seen me through a lot of manuscripts, a lot of dreams, a lot of disappointments. I’ve cried with it and laughed with it and learned how to work around its quirks. And I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.

~*~

I’m a guest again today on the Borrowed Book, where I’m talking about a day in my life–don’t miss your chance to enter to win a signed copy of Ring of Secrets (one just for the commenters there) and also get more entries into my Box of Secrets giveaway!

I want to be like a potato. Aside from the fact that they don’t have hourglass figures, that is. 😉 But every time I reach for one in dinner prep, it hits me anew.

I want to be able to sprout no matter where I am. No matter how unsuitable the “where” is to sprouting. That right there would be enough. If we could put out roots like a potato, then just think how secure we’d be in our lives, wherever we are. Whatever we’re doing.

I want to be long-lasting. No week-away expiration date. I want to be able to still go strong after weeks and months left sitting. Because sometimes there are periods of inaction in life. Of rest. If I were as long-lasting as a potato, those wouldn’t bother me a bit.

I want to be hearty. I want my work to stick to your bones, yes. But more, I want to know that I’m made of sterner stuff than fluff and nonsense. That I’ve got some starch to me. Maybe that gets potatoes a bad rap in this age of dieting, and maybe it gets people bad raps too sometimes. But that’s the stuff that energy is made of.

I want to be a chameleon, handy for any number of oh-so-different goals. Is there anything you can’t do with a potato? Slice them, fry them, boil them, bake them, mash them, make them a base for a soup…for a candy…for a bread. If I could just be half so useful in half so many ways…

I want to be full of good things. Starch aside, potatoes have nothing but goodness. Anything bad has to be put into them. Lord, make me so pure!

I want to be a staple. Cultures rise and fall around potatoes. I don’t profess that kind of hubris, LOL, but I want to be the kind of wife my husband builds his life around. The kind of mom that provides a life of stability and love for my kiddos. The kind of friend that can be depended on for anything. The kind of writer, the kind of editor, the kind of mentor that people come back to over and over.

I want to be a potato. Not that kind that sits on a couch and does nothing, but the kind that can do it all. The kind that’s just fine with waiting and doing nothing when it’s called for. The kind that can then be picked up and put to any number of uses. 

Lord, make me a potato. Sometimes I’m not so sure I have what it takes to be one of those lumpy brown legumes. But I pray I do. Help me to live up to their example. Help me to be a potato too.