An American author and friend of mine Carol Howard Merritt, tells the story of her Grandmother’s amazing faith [found here]. Carol was about ten when her Grandmother told her the story of the ceiling fan.

Carol’s Grandmother was shopping for a new ceiling fan, and couldn’t decide which one to buy–the white one or the brown one. So, Carol said, “my Grandmother prayed about it, and the Lord spoke to her and told her to buy the white one.” And the Grandmother testifies, years later, she never once regretted the purchase.

Now this easy conversation with God may be the norm for some, but for many of us, confidence in God is a difficult business.

Perhaps we think, “God is too busy to bother over the relatively small issue of the shade of ceiling fan.”

Perhaps we consider ourselves unworthy to approach God. We might think: “My friends are so holy, so prayerful. Compared to them, my faith is pretty weak. And after all, I just don’t have the sort of time and energy to pray every day.”

Or maybe we ask God about most things, we pray to God every day, but hope as we may, we never hear a clear or satisfying response.

This evening’s reading, Psalm 27, is described as a “Triumphant Song of Confidence” in my Bible. Indeed, much of the psalm is about sure and certain confidence in God. The psalm begins:

The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom then should I go in dread?

The psalmist sees a stark contrast between the psalmist and the enemies. The psalmist prays to God, and is certain,

God will hide me in God’s shelter in the day of misfortune;
and I shall acclaim God in God’s tent,singing a psalm of praise to the Lord; The Lord will set me high on a rock.

And the psalmist writes, assuredly, of confidence in God defeating the enemies.

Surely, Psalm 27 is one of a strong and faithful confidence in God.

But if only this were all. If only things were so simple, and we could all confidently get clear help in our next ceiling fan purchase, or our house payment, or in delivering us from war in Iraq and unrest in Gaza. If only it were so easy.

I met with a couple last week that had, they said, little or no confidence in God–one called herself an atheist and the other a humanist. They both explained, as they looked around at the world–at the millions living with HIV/AIDS, at the perils of global climate change, at wars, and famine, and poverty–as they considered the worst of the world, they said they couldn’t see how a loving God could allow such horrible things.

We had a long conversation–quite enjoyable, I must say–and by the end of things, I can’t claim I had helped one bit. After nearly an hour, all their questions remained. Sure, our conversation gave them another perspective to consider, but I don’t think after decades of doubt they have any more confidence in God after our visit.

But I’m not sure God seeks an unquestioning, undiscerning, unthoughtful confidence. I told that couple, and I truly believe, God is with us in our struggles, God is with us in our questions, God is with us even if we can’t muster a word and the tears fall down our faces.

And read from a questioning perspective, or a less-than-overly confident perspective, the words of Psalm 27 point in this very direction. The psalmist had confidence in God, certainly, but it’s not untested, unconsidered, or thoughtless.

Much of the psalm is on the writer’s struggle with the evildoers, with real enemies who seek, in the words of the psalmist, “to assail me and devour my flesh.” The psalmist is confident in God’s power to overcome the enemies, but their threat is still a real and present danger.

Midway through, the psalmist sings,

Hear, Lord, when I call aloud;
show me favor and answer me.
“Come,” my heart has said,
“Seek God’s presence.”
I seek your presence, Lord;
do not hide your face from me,
nor in your anger turn away your servant
whose help you have been;
Do not reject or forsake me.

The psalmist is confident in the Lord’s response, but questions remain. The psalmist sings, “Hear, O Lord, when I call aloud” because deep down there’s a hint of doubt whether God is hearing.

The psalmist sings, “Come, show me favor, answer me” because there’s a fear the answer to the psalmist’s prayers will be difficult to discern.

The psalmist sings, “Do not reject me, do not forsake me” because the psalmist worries about being rejected, and frets over being forsaken.

Psalm 27 is surely one of confidence, but it’s a realistic confidence, a human confidence, a confidence with which many of us surely struggle.

You may remember the headlines this past summer when a book was published that compiled the correspondences of Mother Teresa. The best-seller, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” was widely covered in the news media as a seemingly scandalous collection of Teresa’s writings.

Teresa now famously wrote to a priest, her spiritual confidant,

Jesus has a very special love for you. [But as for me], the silence and emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak… I want you to pray for me — that I let Jesus have [my] free hand.

News outlets drummed up what would sell papers–Mother Teresa doesn’t believe in God, Mother Teresa and her “lack of faith.” But what the actual editor of the book, Brian Kolodiejchuk said, and what God’s people have known forever, is that faith is difficult. Confidence in God is not something one can buy at the store, or order a lifetime supply from a television advert and forget about it. The stages of spiritual growth are complex, confusing, and annoyingly unpredictable.

And the end of her letter, Mother Teresa still asked her priest, her spiritual advisor, to pray for her. Despite the shocking headlines, her faith was not totally absent, rather her confidence in God was at a low point. She experienced, what St. John of Cross described hundreds of years ago, as the “dark night of the soul.” And so she prayed, she studied the Bible, she asked others to pray for her, she worshiped, she sought God’s heart, and she lived a life in loving service to God.

My friend Carol ends her story about her Grandmother and the white ceiling fan considering her own faith.

She says she has considered the story different ways at different times in her life. Sometimes she brings a healthy skepticism. Can you imagine living with a woman who gets home decorating advice from God? “Honey, I really think we should buy the brown one.” “No, definitely the white one…God told me so.”

There’s another possibility, one that leads to anger Carol says–why would God bother with the color of a ceiling fan when folks are praying for so many more “important” things–war, hunger, disease–little things like that.

But now, years later, Carol says she looks on the story with sweetness. Carol writes,

I mean, my grandmother had just lost her husband. She was buried in all of those forms and papers that she had to fill out. And then there was the ceiling fan…it wasn’t a small purchase. Now that I can more easily put myself in that young, young widow’s shoes, I realize that it was huge.

She had just built her dream home in the middle of the country. I doubt my grandfather ever made over thirty thousand dollars in a year, and they had almost completed this two-story home, with their own hands, when my grandfather contracted liver cancer. He died, and left her in that big house, picking out her own fan.

And somehow, in that quick moment of need, God stopped by the hardware store, and told Granny Frances that the white one would be best.

Carol’s right. It is a sweet story. But she’s right too to wrestle with it, to seek God through the seemingly mundane choice of what color fan to purchase and see her Grandmother’s struggles to cope with grief over the loss of a husband.

Psalm 27 is a sweet story too, one of confidence in God. And there’s no way to know completely the situation behind the psalm, but there are hints.

though my father and mother forsake me
do not give up to the greed of my enemies
lead me on a level path to escape my foes who beset me

The psalmist isn’t wresting with the AIDS epidemic, world hunger, or the war in Iraq, but we can tell the psalmist’s life is a struggle. Forsaken by father and mother, beset by foes, attacked by greedy enemies, the psalmist somehow expresses a confidence in God.

And so, tonight we place ourselves in the long line of the faithful, and meet to do the same. Perhaps you’re in your own struggles of grief, of questioning God, of fighting off an enemy. Or perhaps, you’re in a different place, more confident in God than ever before. Perhaps you’re hearing God’s home decorating instructions, or perhaps you’re praying to hear God at all.

Wherever you are, whatever confidence you have, bring it before God–in this place of corporate worship, in prayer, in song, in the celebration of this Lord’s Supper, in the meeting of this community. And as you go out this night, bring your true confidence in God–whatever it may be–into conversations with friends and neighbors. Bring that confidence–small or large–into the supermarket, the hardware store, the butchers and the bakers.

Bring your true self, struggle with your questions or confidence, and in the end, may we all sing with the psalmist, putting our final hope in the Lord of heaven and earth.