I keep losing my TV remote. I think this is a side effect of: a) having kids, and b) having several devices each requiring its own remote. There are honestly just too many to keep track of. It’s funny really. We have reached a point where my phone is a computer, camera, calendar, stereo, and any number of other things, but we still haven’t managed to create a truly universal remote that runs every entertainment device in the house.
And if we did, we’d probably lose it down the couch cushions.
So, I decided to solve the problem. I bought device that will ensure that I never lose a remote again. I just attach a little tag to each remote, and at the push of button a tag will beep, letting me know where to find it. Now I just have to make sure that I don’t lose the remote that has all the tag buttons.
It seems we lose a lot of things in life. Remotes, keys, money, memories, health, friends and loved ones. We gather all these things to ourselves, but we blink, and suddenly something is gone. What happened? It was just here a minute ago. I swear, I’d lose my own head if it weren’t nailed on.
It’s a hard fact of life. Something that none of us are able to avoid. We lose things. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, or we search hard enough, we are able to find some of them again. But some things seem lost forever.
We even manage to lose faith.
Why is that? Faith, you’d think, would be the one thing that can be counted on never to disappear. It’s not something you absently kick under the bedside table. It’s there, in your heart and your head. It is supposed to be a fundamental part of how we interact with the world. And yet, time and time again, it just fails to be there when you need it. You reach into yourself and find the faith you once knew has fallen through a hole you didn’t know was there. You might even see it pouring away, and scramble to try and catch as much as you can before it’s too late.
A lot of things can cause the loss. Perhaps an unanswered prayer snatched faith away. It could be some confusion about scripture or doctrine that robs you of it. Maybe some scandal or wrongdoing by the Church leaders or members makes you intentionally toss your faith aside, and it gets lost in the weeds on the side of the road.
Whatever the reason, it can be so very hard to find your faith again. There is no convenient device that can locate missing faith simply by pushing a button. Going back to where you last saw it often doesn’t work. It’s like trying to find Waldo in a mass of chaos, and after awhile you swear he’s just not there.
But, I think, as I consider the ups and downs of my own faith life, and all the times that I seem to have misplaced my faith somewhere, it is the search that is important. To persevere in seeking, reaching out to God to guide you: that’s what is needed. Because that is hope. And hope is the seed of faith. As long as we hold onto hope, faith is never far away (it’s got to be in the house somewhere; it will turn up).
As we begin a new year, I know that there are many who have lost faith. The past half-decade or more has not been easy, and faith has been hard to hold sometimes. But there is still hope. Hope for better days ahead. Hope for a light to pierce the darkness. Hope that, one day, tired and despairing, we will collapse, exhausted, onto the couch, and find faith, pure and bright, poking us in the back from between the couch cushions.
It’s always in the last place that you look.
