Moving, with Mara; or, Faith is Not the Absence of Sadness

My family is moving today, again. Marian and I attempted recently to count our moves. We came up with eleven of them, plus the one today; twelve moves in 19 years. I have prayed many times that God would settle us; that He would give us a place and a season of the rest that comes with being planted somewhere. He has refused. So today, if you want to speak to me, you may call me Mara (Ru 1:20).

The truth is I can't see what God is doing. His hands are invisible hands. And His ways are past finding out (Ro 11:33-36). As the Scriptures tell repeatedly, God's providences are regularly hard ones, at least for some of His children. And those God-wrought hardships bring real loss, causing real pain, causing real sadness. And I've had my fill of the ignorant Christian proclaiming his/her  backward view on faith's relationship to such things. Faith, dear people, is not the absence of sadness (See Job, for example, or many of David's Psalms; or Lk 22, or 2 Co 1 & 4; or He 11; Etc, etc, etc).