The Staits of Agony

One may be confused about your location on the chart of faith, but it is always clear when one is moving through the Straits of Agony. There is no doubt about a journey that goes through agony: it is clear, painful, scary and requires trust at a level not usually encountered. Friends of mine that have crossed over the Gulf Stream when sailing have told me that you can see the difference in the waters and feel the strength of the currents. The same can be said of the Straits of Agony. There is no double as to when you are there.

You will find the going difficult and your faith challenged. It may be encountered at any point in the journey, but usually it occurs in the deeper waters of the journey of faith. Just when it all seems to be making sense at a deeper level, the Straits of Agony can cause you to go off course. It could be rejection by others or an inner struggle for a sense of self. It could be a storm that has entered your life beyond your control or a storm that has been deep inside you resulting from years of denial and neglect. The ancients referred to it as the Dark Night of the Soul, while others might refer to it as hitting the Wall, such as in the book, The Critical Journey.

The challenge is to hang on. In a sailboat or small craft caught in a storm, one has to have some trust in the sea worthiness of the craft. In the Straits of Agony, one has to have some confidence in the creator and the creature: God and ourselves. This higher level of trust does not guarantee safe passage, but it does become a moment of choice. Am I going to abandon my faith? Or will this become a moment of strengthening my faith? The challenge is to hold on.

The Island of Awe

When we journey from the Island of Action to the Island of Awe, we are moving from waters easier to navigate into deeper waters, with the Islands further apart. In a journey of faith, we can choose to avoid the more difficult navigation through issues that challenge us, but then we miss out on the amazing grace that we sometimes too easily sing about.

When we chart the Islands of the deeper waters of faith, we find there to be a parallel to the first three islands, so it will benefit us to draw a connection between Awareness and Awe, Acceptance and Assurance, Action and Agape.

The four shores of the Island of Awe show us same concepts as the Island of Awareness, only at a more profound level. The north shore of Awareness asked the question, How often do you think of God? The north shore of Awe asks, How often do you dialogue with God?  When you visit a museum of art, you might pass quickly through the many exhibits and you become aware of the works of art. But when you spend time focusing on a work of art, you allow it to speak to you and you begin to see things that a quick glance would not permit you to see. So it is with the north shore of Awe. Here you spend time letting God speak to you, not just thinking about God. Here you enter into a relationship with God that involves a give and take, much as you enter into relationship with a work of art.

The east shore of Awareness is where we see God in nature. The east shore of Awe is where we begin to see God in everything we do. We see God in relationships, at work, at play and even in moments of hardship and tragedy. Theology is no longer found only at church, but we begin to see resurrection in life around us.

The south shore of Awareness is where we feel loved by God. On the Island of Awe, we enter into a dialogue of the heart with God and we find our need to love God so profound, that we cannot imagine life without our expression of love toward God. We begin to desire worship in a way that leaves our souls empty when we cannot offer praise and thanksgiving to the One who created us and sustains us.

The west shore of Awareness shows us the big picture that God so loves the world. On the Island of Awe, we see how God transforms the world, and especially, how God is at work transforming us. Working through Christ and the Holy Spirit, our lives are now being changed. We no longer need to prove our worth to others or strive for status and wealth, because we see ourselves being transformed by the power of God’s love in Jesus; changed into the likeness of Christ. This becomes a powerful part of the journey, and causes us to search our souls in ways that we have never done before. We understand ourselves in new ways: we become new a part of God’s new creation in Christ.

If we find ourselves leaving church the same as we entered church, then we have not yet explored the Island of Awe. If we focus on proving ourselves to God or others, we have not explored the Island of Awe. After exploring this island, we sing in a new way, Our God is an awesome God.

The Island of Action

After exploring the first two islands, it may seem as if much of the faith journey is about the individual experience of God or how the individual fits into the community of believers. While the personal experience of people of faith always remains important, the communal dimension of faith must be explored as well. Faith is more than discovering that I am aware of God or that I am accepted in the church. It is about how God acts with, through and for people.

The third island, the Island of Action, calls us to make a difference in this world by acting in cooperation with others. Jesus did not send disciples out one by one, but rather two by two: in teams. We must not just ponder our faith or simply teach others to be faithful. We must act for God in the world.

To explore the Island, we need to explore each of the shores. The north shore reveals to us how education teaches us to act. In this economy, when one loses a job, the suggestion is to re-educate oneself or to learn a new set of skills for a new job. People of faith need to learn the skills that lead to action on behalf of God. Education for people of faith includes Bible study and small group discussion that focuses on doing the work of God, not just reflecting on it.

The east shore is where we see the needs of this world and are called to respond. We see the hungry and the homeless, and are moved by faith to do something. We see hopelessness in our neighbors or fear in our communities due to crime and we respond with encouragement and comfort. We witness the earthquakes, fires or floods, and are moved to act through mission teams that travel to rebuild.

The south shore adds compassion to the mix and we are called to care. Our hearts are warmed by the visits made to those hospitalized or facing difficult times. We not only see the needs of our communities and our world, but we are moved by compassion to do something. Lead by our hearts, we respond.

The west shore causes us to look at the big picture of justice in our world. We experience unrighteousness or injustice and are called to make it right and just in whatever ways we can. Our souls are touched by the ways in which people have been treated throughout history, such as being denied civil rights or used by others for their economic gain, and we are called to stand on the side of God’s vision for social justice. Music has long been a key part in movements to bring about justice, whether through the struggle of women to gain the right to vote or the struggle of people to end slavery. The message of justice can often be presented in music in ways that would never be accepted in words.

People of faith are called to act for God in ways that bring an end to suffering and injustice. Our baptismal vows ask us to resist evil and stand for good and these are actions that become a part of who we are as Christians.

The Island of Acceptance

People who become aware of God gather together in the church. This community of believers forms an organization that helps one another understand the journey of faith and represents that journey to others. When effective, the church encourages one another to deepen their faith and, in the process, the church grows because others are seeing the benefits of taking the faith journey.

However, when the church is most ineffective, people feel judged and discouraged, and the last thing they want is to join the journey. An important question always arises among those considering a  faith community: Am I accepted? Do I have a place in this community? So the next stop on the journey of faith is the Island of Acceptance.

The north shore is where we discover that we belong to the family of God. Baptism becomes an important tool for the church to convey this sense of belonging. Remember your baptism and be thankful does not mean remember the day you were baptized, but rather remember the fact that you are baptized and belong to the family of God. Belonging is so powerful a gift that we cannot help but be thankful.

On the east side of this island, we explore the gifts God has given to each of us and we how we become recognized by those gifts. The God given gifts become a part of our identity and distinguish us in the Body of Christ. Recognizing the gifts found in each person, the community affirms each other and learns to rely on one another according to their gifts.

On the south shore, we experience being cared for by others. When this care is genuine and when people begin to pray for one another, the power of that caring couples with the awareness that God loves us and the result can be transformational. Understanding that one belongs, is cared for and is recognized for the gifts they have been given leads to a desire to make a difference through participation in the Body of Christ.

The west shore is where we explore just how we fit into the bigger picture. How do we fit into the Body? How does God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit (in actuality, all three) guide the Body into a system that reaches out with compassion to a hurting world? Awareness of God and feeling accepted in the community of faith leads us to the next island: Action.

The Island of Awareness

The journey of faith begins with awareness. Becoming aware of God and that God moves in our midst in the present moment calls us to explore the realities of faith and how it affects our lives. Having said this, some might visit other islands in this journey, such as acceptance or action, before dealing with awareness, but seldom does one get too far along in the journey of faith without acknowledging the reality of God.

The only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme God, that is to deny God’s existence. If one does not believe in God, then it would be impossible for God to offer forgiveness to that person. But once we become aware of God, we begin the journey that leads us into much deeper waters. So the chart begins with the Island of Awareness.

The Island of Awareness has four shores. Each of the islands we explore on this journey have four shores and similar characteristics. The north shore highlights the rational part of our being that seeks understanding for issues we face. The east shore of each island acknowledges the physical part of our lives that seeks to be concrete and hands on in our approach to God. The south shore of each island adds the emotional or feeling part of our lives to the journey of faith and the west shore brings the mystery of God’s involvement in our lives and the power of sacraments.

On the Island of Awareness, the north shore is where we think about God. When was the first time you thought about God? When was the last time you thought about God? How do you allow time in your life to think about God? When we think about God, we become acutely aware of God.

The east shore is where we see God, especially in the physical creation that surrounds us in life. For the beauty of the earth, the wonders of the sky which from our birth around us lie. Seeing God in creation helps us become more aware of God’s presence.

But God does not just touch our minds or our sight, for God is also felt in our hearts. When did you first experience the love of God for your life? When we explore the south shore of the Island of Awareness, we explore our feelings about God, even our anger toward God or our frustration with God. Do you allow time in your life to explore your feelings about God?

The west shore demands that we explore the bigger picture of God. When did you first realize just how much a mystery God presents to your life? When were you first struck with the reality that God so loved the world, that he gave his son? When did you stop trying to put God in a box that you could manage? When we ask these questions, we are exploring the west shore of the island.

We often will revisit this island since awareness is the foundation of our journey of faith. But we also will be tempted to stay on this island and fail to go further along in the journey. It is a beautiful island and it can be more easily reached than some other destinations, but the journey is not complete after simply exploring our awareness of God.

For some people, God speaks to them through the person of Jesus Christ, while for others it might be nature or the Holy Spirit. As long as we deny God, we keep ourselves from having any relationship with God, and that relationship is the basis for our journey of faith.

Charting the Waters of Faith

In order to navigate, one needs a good chart. In order to understand where you are on the journey of faith, one needs a tool that helps you locate what you have explored and what is left to explore. Creating that chart requires an understanding of the stages involved in the development of faith.


Why use the metaphor of a chart? In Salisbury, we live on a peninsula surrounded by water with the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Chesapeake Bay to the west. But water has also long represented the Sacrament of Baptism, so to include water in the metaphor that represents a faith journey gives added meaning to the sermon series. The symbol of a ship has long been identified with the church, and to imagine that a ship is the tool we use to explore faith seems to keep the church in perspective as a tool, not an end in itself.


Everyone who travels needs to learn to read a map and for those who travel on water, the appropriate tool is a chart. While a map marks places on land and how to get there by roads, a chart brings land and sea together and adds the challenge of navigating shallower and deeper waters. Being able to include the Straits of Agony as part of the faith journey also reminds us that faith is not always an easy journey.


In this sermon series, we will seek to explore six Islands: the Island of Awareness, the Island of Acceptance, and the Island of Action (all located in the shallower waters); and the Islands of Awe, Assurance and Agape (all located in deeper waters). To get from the Island of Awe to the Island of Assurance, one must travel through the Straits of Agony.


Each Island has four shores: a north shore, east, south and west shore. To truly explore, and not just visit, each Island, we will need to experience each shore. Most of this exploration will be done as part of the blog rather than the sermons themselves.


All in all, I look forward to sharing in this journey of faith that uses the chart we will build together. Bon voyage.

Welcome to iExplore Faith

If you are visiting this site, then you are likely interested in exploring faith and the role it plays in your life and others. You may be on a quest to better understand your own faith or you may be searching to help others explore their faith or lack of it. You may be a part of Asbury United Methodist Church in Salisbury, Maryland, where I serve as one of their pastors. We are in the midst of a sermon series entitlled, iExplore: Charting the Waters of Faith. Whatever your reason for being here, welcome.


I hope to engage you in a deeper understanding of how faith develops in our lives. I seek your thoughts, because your experiences on the journey add value to a greater understanding of the experiences of others. The background for this study will be shared early in the postings and is based on a variety of faith development theories, but primarily based upon the book, The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, by Janet O. Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich.


If you have ever wondered about God, felt a call from God (or a yearning that would not go away), been angry with God or found yourself running as far away from God as you thought possible, then you have been on a faith journey. Some people prefer to just "visit" faith and not really explore it. One might say that visiting Italy, i.e., spending one day in Venice, one in Milan, one day in Florence and a couple of days in Rome, is far different than exploring Italy, and getting to know its people and its culture.


iExplore Faith hopes to invite those of you who want to go deeper into your relationship with God to do much more than visit faith issues. I hope you will join us.