Is faith the problem - or how it’s used?

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I don’t remember exactly what age I was when we were invited to the local African American Seventh Adventist Church for a short devotional. I believe I was around 12 to 13 years old. We each gave a short lecture on different topics that we chose to share. I chose the topic of faith. As a future preacher hopeful, I was excited that I had an opportunity to get a taste of what preaching was like, even though I wasn’t allowed to stand at the pulpit. Unlike the other kids who struggled to pick a topic to talk about, my brain was like a library of sermons, lessons, and stories that had been preached to me. So I automatically browsed the “channels” in my head and chose “Sit on the Chair in Faith” as my short devotional topic.

When it was my turn, I pulled a chair and carried it to the floor. Of course, I had an ASL interpreter who voiced for me: “Do you know what faith is?” A simple message in action. All I did was demonstrate: “Look, here’s the chair. I sit,” as I sat on the chair. “It’s not broken. How do I know it’s not broken? I have faith that this chair is not broken. That’s why I sat on the chair without any problem,” I explained.

The audience was quiet but looked interested. That kind of symbolic story was common in Southern Baptist moral parables, but not often heard in Seventh-day Adventist churches. Still, the message sounded on point. “So we trust God. Do you know why we trust God? Because we have faith that God isn’t broken. I didn’t analyze the chair before I sat on it. I just sat. We don’t analyze God. We simply trust Him.”

As I put the chair back in its place, I said, “That’s all I wanted to share with  

I entered the secular freethinking realm in the early 2010s. My understanding of God has evolved a lot, and all of the preachers I used to admire no longer appeal to me—not because of who they were, but because they were no longer the right fit for my growth journey. As my theological understanding rapidly grew, I no longer looked at God the same way I did when I was still inside the Christian belief bubble.

I once had someone say to me, “Perhaps you’re confused because you didn’t sit on the chair in faith.” Interesting thought. Yes, the chair itself is not the problem. The real issue is that my body grew bigger and the chair was too small for my size, yet I forced myself to fit into that small chair—and I ended up breaking it.

God is not the problem. Neither are religions or beliefs. But honestly, I don’t care about that anymore. I outgrew the beliefs and cultural expectations, and as a grown adult man, trying to sit in a child’s chair only made everything more difficult. I have two choices to deal with a broken chair: repair it or replace it. Some broken chairs aren’t meant to be repaired, even if I have the tools. It’s much simpler to replace the chair with one that’s the proper size and strength—one that I can actually sit on.

Imagine you remember visiting a local elementary school for a gathering, maybe a parents-and-teachers meeting, and all the chairs are taken. Someone offers you a kid’s chair, and you tell yourself in your head, “Sigh… okay. Just for a moment.” You sit on the kid’s chair, but not for a permanent purpose—just to get through it.

That’s exactly how I feel when someone invites me to church. And I mean any church—not just a specific church or denomination—because I outgrew the whole system.

So what do you think? How does the “Sit on the chair in faith” lesson apply to your life in general—not just spirituality, but also your career and employment, relationships and marriage, and anything else? Comment down here.

Happy Christmas Week!