What is Faith
Now faith is being certain of what we hope for, confident of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we do not see it. Hebrews 11:1 (TLB)
We ask the question, what is faith and the Bible answers with the verse above from Hebrews. Faith is a confidence that God is for us, that His will is perfect and best, no matter how things look or feel. That is great! It is such a lovely, happy promise for us and when things are going well it is so easy to believe. When all is right in our little worlds we have such strong faith but what happens in the tough times? In the truly tough times, our faith can sometimes be even stronger. It’s the grey areas that are the hardest to handle.
Just yesterday I was speaking to my daughter-in-love Stephanie, a young woman who is proof positive to me that God hears and answers my prayers. We were talking about a few different and equally difficult topics. Each one came back to the same thing, we don’t understand God’s will. We’d like to. We try to and sometimes we think we do or at least might. But, at the end of the day, we don’t. Much of our conversation was filled with things that look like injustice to us, things that prove the verse about God causing the sun to rise on the evil and the good. (Matthew 5:45)
It is especially hard to watch someone who has or is throwing away a blessing that our own hearts so desperately seek, getting more and more of the same blessings. Ouch! Our human hearts want to cry out, “But what about me?” It is harder still when we see someone we love being taken for granted, not appreciated, completely devalued. We wonder why God is allowing them to go through such hard times. As we spoke I had only two answers for my dear girl. One is that we don’t know. Yuk! We hate that answer! The other is that God is molding each of us into the people he wants us to be, so that we can best serve Him.
What is faith? It is the confidence that God has the best plan for us. It is trusting that no matter how things look, God’s will is perfect and best. It is accepting, the I don’t knows and I don’t understands. Faith is hard. It calls us to believe what we can’t see and to ignore some of what we can see. Faith is the only place to stand when the going gets rough and it is the hardest place to stand when the going gets rough.
We are called to walk by faith. Some days we have to face the fact that our walk has become a crawl. We cling to our faith with white knuckles and tight jaws. We experience doubt and fear and then wonder if that is why the blessings escape us. All of that, the crawling, gut wrenching questioning, is okay. Our loving Father knows our hearts and as long as our hearts are set on Him, as long as we seek to have more faith, He will hear and answer us.
It is hard to hang on when things seem impossible. In those moments we need to remember that with God all things are possible. I don’t know what the future holds or why things happen the way they do. I do know that God restored my first born to me and that years later through that son he blessed my life with Stephanie.
What is faith? The constant knowledge that I haven’t got a clue and that that is not at all important. I don’t need a clue, I have a Savior.
What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we do not see it. Hebrews 11:1 (TLB)
We ask the question, what is faith and the Bible answers with the verse above from Hebrews. Faith is a confidence that God is for us, that His will is perfect and best, no matter how things look or feel. That is great! It is such a lovely, happy promise for us and when things are going well it is so easy to believe. When all is right in our little worlds we have such strong faith but what happens in the tough times? In the truly tough times, our faith can sometimes be even stronger. It’s the grey areas that are the hardest to handle.
Just yesterday I was speaking to my daughter-in-love Stephanie, a young woman who is proof positive to me that God hears and answers my prayers. We were talking about a few different and equally difficult topics. Each one came back to the same thing, we don’t understand God’s will. We’d like to. We try to and sometimes we think we do or at least might. But, at the end of the day, we don’t. Much of our conversation was filled with things that look like injustice to us, things that prove the verse about God causing the sun to rise on the evil and the good. (Matthew 5:45)
It is especially hard to watch someone who has or is throwing away a blessing that our own hearts so desperately seek, getting more and more of the same blessings. Ouch! Our human hearts want to cry out, “But what about me?” It is harder still when we see someone we love being taken for granted, not appreciated, completely devalued. We wonder why God is allowing them to go through such hard times. As we spoke I had only two answers for my dear girl. One is that we don’t know. Yuk! We hate that answer! The other is that God is molding each of us into the people he wants us to be, so that we can best serve Him.
What is faith? It is the confidence that God has the best plan for us. It is trusting that no matter how things look, God’s will is perfect and best. It is accepting, the I don’t knows and I don’t understands. Faith is hard. It calls us to believe what we can’t see and to ignore some of what we can see. Faith is the only place to stand when the going gets rough and it is the hardest place to stand when the going gets rough.
We are called to walk by faith. Some days we have to face the fact that our walk has become a crawl. We cling to our faith with white knuckles and tight jaws. We experience doubt and fear and then wonder if that is why the blessings escape us. All of that, the crawling, gut wrenching questioning, is okay. Our loving Father knows our hearts and as long as our hearts are set on Him, as long as we seek to have more faith, He will hear and answer us.
It is hard to hang on when things seem impossible. In those moments we need to remember that with God all things are possible. I don’t know what the future holds or why things happen the way they do. I do know that God restored my first born to me and that years later through that son he blessed my life with Stephanie.
What is faith? The constant knowledge that I haven’t got a clue and that that is not at all important. I don’t need a clue, I have a Savior.
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