An atheist and a pastor sit down for coffee…

Sounds like the set up for a joke but such a meeting takes place in Mark Buchanan’s new novel, What Is Left of the Night.

The year is 1942, and an atheist writer and a Christian pastor, inhabitants of a tiny French village, are discussing how to topple the Nazi regime. 

The pastor explains that he has chosen to take the way of Jesus, who confronted Roman and religious oppression by wielding ideas not weapons and by giving up his life to save others. The truth about God’s kingdom, he says, is ​“very dangerous. Very political. Always.” So he is preaching the gospel and living it out — hiding Jews in his home and mobilizing his village to do the same.

“And this is working?” 

[A fair question from the atheist.]

“Not yet.”

This is faith. Practicing the Kingdom way even when it does not work, yet — because we trust that it will work, eventually. 

It is building an ark in a bone-dry field because God says rain’s coming (Gen 6:22).

It is sharing with a stranger the last of your oil and flour because the Lord says he will provide (1 Ki 17:12 – 14).

It is putting away your sword — even after you’ve used it disgracefully — and learning in time to be like the Good Shepherd, repaying evil with good (Matt 26:51 – 54; 1 Pet 2:21 – 23, 3:9 – 17).

When we’re faithful to a way that doesn’t yet ​“work,” the Enemy is sure to sow doubt and discouragement. A seed of cynicism sprouts up and attacks the little kernel of kingdom-confidence growing inside us. 

Faith is fragile, isn’t it? 

Trusting that God is real is not as hard, maybe, but trusting that God is good and worth following — that kind of faith can be uprooted by a single tragedy. It can be choked out by anything that makes the triumph of evil seem more realistic than heaven’s faint promise. 

Doubts may visit the mind, but don’t show them hospitality. 

Jesus says, ​“My Father is always working.” 

We sing: Even when we don’t see it, You’re working. 

The way of Jesus is ​“narrow” because it isn’t easy or obvious, and it doesn’t yield immediate results. Forgiving feels absurd. Generosity unwise. Resistance puny. Resurrection too good to be true. 

But God never stops working, and ​“at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal 6).