Faith in the Cracks: When Life Isn’t Pretty but God Is Still Present.

Gary L Ellis
Jun 13
3 min read

Updated: Jun 22

Not every day is a sunrise and coffee

Life isn’t always a sunrise and a cup of coffee. Sometimes it’s a broken dishwasher, a doctor calling you back, or waking up at 3am wondering if everything you’ve built is about to collapse.

Faith isn’t about pretending the mess isn’t there. It’s about finding God in it anyway.

When Miracles Don’t Show Up, But the Bills Do

Some days, you don’t get a miracle. You get a parking ticket. You get silence. You get one more thing stacked on top of the ten you’re already carrying. But even then, something holy holds.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Notice it says walk through, not camp out. You’re moving. Even when you feel stuck. Even when your prayers feel like they hit the ceiling and bounce back.

The Real Face of Faith Isn’t Always Pretty

Let’s be honest. Faith isn’t pretty. Not all the time. It’s not Instagrammable. It’s sitting in your car outside the house because you need one more minute before you go back inside. It’s holding onto the thinnest thread of hope and calling that enough for today.

Barbara Brown Taylor once said, “Faith is not about being sure where you’re going, but going anyway.”

Some of us were taught faith means certainty. But maybe real faith is what you do when you don’t feel certain at all.

God Shows Up in the Gaps

Maybe faith lives in the cracks — the places that feel too fragile to hold anything. That’s where light gets in. That’s where grace leaks through.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Not in your shiny moments. Not in your performance. Not when everything’s going right. In weakness. That’s where God shows off.

You Don’t Need Fire. Just Embers.

If you’re feeling weak today, you’re not disqualified. You’re exactly where God does God’s best work.

Your faith doesn’t have to look like fire. It can look like embers. It can look like crawling. It can look like barely showing up. That still counts.

Some people talk about “standing on the promises.” That’s good. But some days, you just lean on them. Slumped over. Half-praying, half-crying.

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Not hustle. Not shame. Not “get it together.” Just rest.

Drop the Act. God’s Not Fooled Anyway.

You don’t need to pretend it’s all fine. God doesn’t need your filters. God doesn’t flinch at your real. If anything, God leans in closer when you drop the act.

Richard Rohr puts it this way: “The genius of the biblical revelation is that it refuses to deny the dark side of things, but forgives them, transforms them, and uses them.”

That’s the God we’re dealing with.

Jesus Gets It. Really.

The God who walked through fire. Who cried at tombs. Who bled. Who sat with the rejected, the burnt out, the misunderstood. Who knows exactly what it feels like to be you.

If all you can do is whisper “God, help,” that’s a prayer.

God in the Everyday Breakdown

We keep looking for God in the obvious places. In the breakthroughs. In the good news. In the wins. But God keeps showing up in the cracks. In the breakups. In the layoffs. In the therapy sessions. In the little brave things we do every day to stay upright.

Don’t beat yourself up for not having it all together. Jesus never asked you to.

He just said, follow Me.Not “impress Me.”

Faith Is Not a Performance. It’s Survival.

Faith in the cracks means showing up without answers. Trusting without a map. Loving without guarantees.

You’re not failing. You’re growing roots.

Maybe God isn’t fixing everything right now because God’s busy forming something in you — something you don’t see yet, something deeper than relief: transformation.

This isn’t the highlight reel. This is the real stuff. And this is where God shows up.