Ugly things

The other day I was listening to a Ben Folds song (yes I am not going to try to deny it I like Ben Folds) and I was struck by one of the lines. He sings this,

'Alice, the world is full of ugly things that you can't change

Pretend it's not that way

It's my idea of faith'

As a Christian I live by faith. However, the problem I have when I say this is that most people's idea of faith is this head in the sand mentality. People think that when I say that I live by faith what I mean is that I spend my life believing something which is frankly unbelievable. The thing is that this is not how I understand faith. When I say that I have faith in God and his revelation in the Bible it means that because of what God has already done (as recorded in the Bible) I have confidence that he will go on to do what he has promised. We all exercise faith in some things and the trick of life is to try to have faith in things which won't disappoint. I have faith in God because I believe he is the most trustworthy person in the universe.

The other thing these lyrics got me thinking about though was the ugly things in the world which I can't change. I read an article last week by the one and only Richard Dawkins in which he said that Christians were obsessed by suffering. Now whilst I disagree with this assumption I would like to say that in a world which is full of ugly things which you can't change you either have to face up to them or live life pretending that it's not like that. Christianity faces up to and tries to deal with suffering when most people (myself included at times) simply pretend it's not that way.

Sadly the world is full of ugly things that you can't change and I don't have sufficient 'faith' to simply pretend it's not that way.