So we don’t look at the things that we see, but at what we don’t see, since what we see passes away, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18).

One of the great existential issues that humans have debated since forever is the question of what is real. I’m sure that many of you have experienced the amateur philosopher challenging you with the claim that we can’t truly, objectively know, experience, or describe anything of reality. They might even have gone so far as to ask whether you yourself are real, or perhaps only an inhabitant of someone else’s (usually the now annoying inquisitor’s) imagination.

By the time we reach our late twenties or early thirties, most of us no longer find ourselves shaken by the pesky solipsists who once assailed us. And yet an honest appraisal reveals that even if we have long years of discipleship under our belts we regularly come up against our limitations in knowing, being sure of, and experiencing what is truly real. The fantasy life beckons with what feels to be a more secure, more tangible, more attainable, even more defensible vision of a satisfying and fulfilling life.

Why do even the “stalwarts” among us find ourselves guessing at reality? There are obvious answers that we could rattle off (we’re imperfect, sight-limited, lazy, content with the here-and-now, distracted, etc.). But those are simply the common threads of our humanity with which we cannot argue. What are the deeper waters where we swim, caught up in the attractions of our alternative fantasy worlds?

I believe that much of the struggle with reality has its source in a triumvirate of expectations, promises, and the competing landscapes of claims to what is true. Let’s take these in turn, beginning with this question: What do we expect reality to be or look like? Is the answer simply a matter of discovering our inner optimist or pessimist? Is it a function of personality? No doubt in part, and yet there’s certainly more to it than expressing a naturally sour or sunny disposition. I, for example, am a mixed bag in this regard. There are times that I wake up sure that the day is destined for greatness – I can’t imagine having my best laid plans going awry. In other circumstances, I look ahead to an event, a project, a meeting with the gloomy anticipation of a Michigan fan on football Saturday. Neither of these states of mind necessarily has any connection to what is real or to what God intends for my life.

Besides personality or the effects of last night’s meal at Taco Bell, where do these expectations come from? I think part of the answer has its roots in different kinds of promises. Promises come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: They can be explicit or implied. They might be assurances of the if/then or “believe me” variety. We hear promises all the time – messages that amount to declared certainties, augmented or diminished in our eyes by confidence in the promisor, by personal experience, by dispositions to trust or to cynicism.

Of course, promises and expectations are the florescence of belief systems; they grow out of and are conditioned by competing claims about what is true. They also profoundly influence how we act. Members of the Flat Earth society allow belief to prevent them from venturing too far out to sea in the expectation that doing so would lead to their doom, and in the promise that staying close to home will keep them safe. As Christians, we are always subject to more consequential and fundamental truth/reality assertions.

There are multiple high-stakes conflicts about what is real and what is true. There are identity and purpose questions for which the world gives formulaic answers that sit in direct opposition to God’s non-formulaic word. What makes a human person happy? Or good? Or fulfilled? Is what we see and touch the “real” reality, or is there something beyond and behind that exists not only in tandem with but in transcendence to our material sensory experiences? Who – if anyone – designs, rules, or determines what is real and true?

We Christians have all the Sunday-school and catechism answers at our beck and call. It’s God, it’s Jesus, it’s – oh, wait, there’s an advertisement for a shiny new luxury car with a supremely happy, absurdly beautiful couple inside. And, look, there’s a man telling us how to attain the perfect million-dollar retirement. And did you read that article about how we can reclaim the body we had when we were 20, or the one predicting that Christianity will disappear by the year 2050, or …

Every day you and I are subjected to a comprehensive assault on any Sunday-school complacency that might infest our hearts and minds. What seemed to be rock-solid belief can slowly erode without an open confrontation with the winds and waves that do the erosion. Among the destructive elements, the most powerful are probably suffering; comparison of our lives with those of others and with worldly promises; and the lies that we hear (and tell ourselves) about what it means to live under God’s favor.

And among the crucial faith treasures against which they are most effective are our conviction about, and trust in the goodness of God; our expectations that his purposes are true and sure; the biblical claim of answered prayer; and our belief that we are cherished sons and daughters regardless of our life experiences and circumstances.

For Christians, engaging the triumvirate of expectations, promises, and competing truth claims is the battle where our discipleship finds its greatest testing and adversity. This unholy trinity and its work against us is either reinforced or countered by how – or even whether – we receive and apply God’s gift of faith in our lives. It is a brutal, but often subtle warfare that the Lord himself wages with us, and that he won for us at the cross.

So far, we’ve been looking more at the outline of the conflict. What about the specifics of how the campaign against us takes shape, and what the Spirit does in us to overcome it?

All for next time. In the meantime, let’s ask the Father for more and more revelation of his real world, before which all else