What is faith? It seems like an easy question to answer, but maybe it’s not. Lately I have been contemplating it and it seems a little more difficult to answer than what it appears at first glance.
In order to help answer here are a couple of definitions:
Faith is trusting in a person – Be it friend, family or acquaintance, we have knowledge that leads us to believe that we can trust in this person.
Faith is trusting common sense, or knowledge – The idea that you know a stool has four legs and a seat, it is put together with glue, screws and/or nails and therefore, it should hold your weight if you sit on it.
Faith is also trusting in the unseen – Whether it is the wind or the smell of cookies hot out of the oven, we often believe in things that we cannot see. Sometimes, we can see the cause or effect of something, but not always. Whatever the case might be, we trust that our senses know what is around us and therefore believe in things that we cannot see.
To sum it up: Faith is a belief based on trust in a point of knowledge.
The faith that I have been thinking about lately is faith in God and how it requires the same faith that trusting a person does, yet, we make it a lot harder on ourselves to trust him. To have faith in God as a person, we have to have some knowledge of him, the more knowledge we have the more we can trust. So, how do we find knowledge on God? We can talk to other people, we can talk to him ourselves and we can learn about him in the Bible. Which brings us to trusting in common knowledge. In order to trust what the Bible tells us, we have to trust that it tells us the truth, and that it is the Word of God. We also have to trust in the unseen. This seems like it should be the hardest thing to trust. Yet, we believe there’s wind because the leaves in trees move when it blows through them. Why is it harder to believe in a God that when he moves, miracles happen, people change, people move? I think in some cases it’s easier to believe that there’s an unseen God then it is to believe in a God that we can trust as a person. We can see the evidence of God in many things, but often we do not trust enough to take him up on his offer of friendship and fatherhood.
So, here is my question for you: At what point do you say, “This is the point of knowledge that I trust in and therefore, this is why I believe”? If you can answer that, I think you have a strong grip on the first step of trusting God completely.
Now, as I said, I have been contemplating faith a lot lately and I wanted to just do a short post about it, but it has turned into a bit of a series. So, this is the first installment and below is a preview of the next couple of posts, which I hope to post in the next week or two. Please feel free to leave some feedback, ask questions, start a discussion, whatever you would like to do. If I take too long in posting the next installment, send me a reminder! Thanks for reading!
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Obedience: What is God waiting on you to do?
- How to take the step that God is asking you to take.
The Orphan’s Cry
- Trusting God enough to cry out with our needs and know that he will hear us and respond.
Above the Influence
- Showing daily faith in an environment that is contradictory and detrimental to your faith.
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