Written by Israel Harding

This blog post is an email that Israel, a student at St Nic’s, wrote to her grandparents during lockdown about her faith journey this year.

From: Israel Harding 

To: Grandma and Grandpa 
Mon, 20 Apr at 16:21

Subject: Lockdown life!

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Thought I'd send an email to chat about life in lockdown and keep you updated on what I'm up to!

The last term has been mind-blowing for me because I had something of a transformation of faith. It started bothering me that I had this subconscious belief that reason and faith are two different attitudes to life that are incompatible - that either I was being a bad Christian by being a scientist or being a bad scientist by being a Christian. And so I finally decided to watch a Q&A with Tim Keller on YouTube, titled "Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism" - one I've been meaning to watch for months but it's two hours long so I never got round to it. And it completely changed my view of my faith. 

I think, deep down, I was too scared to dig into my faith, because I've always thought that if I dug I'd find there was no logic to it, no reason. Because every time I've debated with an atheist, I've felt like I've lost. And yet here was Tim Keller, a Christian, being hit with the most difficult questions in the book and responding with reason. Here was a debate that, when they reached the end, there was no ‘winner’, per se; instead, there was a respect for each other’s views, a feeling of "my belief is reasonable, your belief is reasonable, we've both made our leaps of faith to get here". It blew my mind that he talked about faith and reason as being essential parts of both belief and non-belief. If you can't prove that God exists, and you can't prove he doesn't, then it takes a leap of faith to reach either conclusion. 

Me and my friend Kate were marvelling at something the other day – Jesus seems almost unconcerned with how much faith we have – look at Luke 16:5-6! ‘The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.’ Or remember that story with the bleeding woman who touched Jesus’ robe? She just brushed the edges of it and she was healed. I really love that. There was something Tim Keller said that if you're falling and you see a branch, you can analyse and reason for whether the branch is strong enough to hold you but the only way you'll know is if you grab it. It doesn’t matter about the strength of your faith: what matters is the strength of the object you put your faith in. One of the first times in my life that I felt I experienced God was a lot like that – I felt like I was reaching for something that I couldn’t find for months and months, until one day my fingertips just brushed onto God. 

This term has also been incredible finding deep friendships with my Christian brothers and sisters. I remember a gathering before lockdown and I just looked around at this new family of mine, all deep in conversation about relationships and worship and evangelism, and I felt like I was going to burst. Isn’t it funny how, with Christians, you can kind of skip the acquaintance phase a bit! When you both are united by God and your fundamental beliefs, everything else doesn't matter that much. Throughout lockdown my Community has been one thing regular in my crazy flurry of emotions. It’s so strange how I can be so anxious and discombobulated all day and it all be totally changed by one hour of prayer and conversation. 

So, yeah, it's been a crazy few months! I feel kind of fragile – but I guess that’s no surprise after deconstructing everything I believe and building it back up. Lockdown has been scary, draining and emotionally exhausting (I’m sure you’ve found that even more!) but I’ve been so blessed to have the community I do, the deep friendships I’ve discovered and the opportunities for conversation that I have. 

Can’t wait to see you soon.

Lots of love,

Israel xx

How has your faith been challenged and changed during lockdown? What has kept you going? What opportunities have you had? We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch at encouragements@stnics.org.