You Gotta Have Faith

We’ve all at some point or another heard, or maybe even said to someone – You Gotta Have Faith.  How about – Have a Little Faith?  How about – Faith is Believing?  How about – Just Believe?  Almost like it’s something you can conjure up or manifest on your own, like something you can pick up in aisle 12 at Wal-Mart.

I’ve been struggling with that word “faith” lately.  What does it mean?  What does it look like?  Where do I get it?  How do I “have” more?  Am I doing it right?  Do I have the energy to pursue it?  Do I have the desire to pursue it?  Does anyone else out there struggle from time-to-time with any of those questions, or maybe even some of your own about “faith?”

I’m speaking solely to myself here and wrestling to understand – I’m afraid my hip is about to be popped out.  As I took a plunge into the depths to understand these questions and more, I found the water is just way over my head.  I also found that if I honestly and genuinely take up my questions with God and pursue His truth, He will hold me up, even if it takes a bit for me to touch the bottom.  We need to understand that God is not a surface worker.  He works deep in our minds and hearts to change us.  If we are not willing to dive into the deep stuff, the hard stuff, the murky waters, we will never find our footing and will be relegated to just floating on the surface.  Let me be perfectly clear here:  Any questions I have about faith do not come from any doubt about God and who He is – He is worthy of all my praise, they are doubts about myself.  As you read on, you’ll see just how Great a God He really is.  Ok, sorry for my diversion.

I know many people say that faith is believing, and it is.  But it is not simply that.  First of all, if it were just believing, there’d be a lot more Believers in the world.  Right?!? Second of all, if faith were that simple, it would put the onus or responsibility for faith all on us.  A people who are completely incapable of and yet arrogant enough to think of faith as something we have control of and the burden of proving to God, ourselves, and others.  So I started digging and here’s what I learned.  By the way, the first six words of 1 Timothy 6:12 precipitated my dive:

Fight the good fight of faith.

When I read that last week I thought how can I fight if I don’t know what I’m fighting for, if I don’t quite understand what I’m fighting for?  Here’s what I found:

According to Strong’s, “faith” is translated from the Greek word pistis.  Stay with me here, it’s revolutionary.  Pistis is from the word peitho which means “persuade, be persuaded, persuasion.”  What’s that mean, you say?  Strong says it means that “faith” is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people. He says:

In short, 4102/pistis (“faith”) for the believer is “God’s divine persuasion” – and therefore distinct from human belief (confidence), yet involving it.

In other words, faith is always received from God and never produced by us.  That’s mind blowing in light of the platitudes – You Gotta Have Faith, Have a Little Faith, again, as if faith is something I’m completely responsible for getting.  Faith comes from God and God alone.  That may have been obvious to you, but it was an ah ha! moment for me.  Faith comes from God persuading my heart to believe what my eyes can’t see.

I may have come up with more questions than answers as I dove into “faith.”  But I have learned and am so comforted that it is not my sole responsibility to obtain.  It isn’t something I get; it is something I’m given.  I cannot have “faith” without God’s persuasion and yet it “involves” me.  Involve is from the Latin word involvere it means “to roll in or up.”  Faith is being rolled in, rolled up,  combined with God.  Strong’s goes on to say:

The Lord continuously births faith in the yielded believer so they can know what He prefers.

“Yielded believer.”  The Lord will produce faith in the surrendered believer.  Faith is a gift from God that I can’t produce in myself, but that I can receive if I’m open to it, so I will know what He wants me to do.

What is faith?  It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.  It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.  Hebrews 11:1

It starts with knowing God’s character, learning who the Faith Giver is, what He’s like, what are His qualities?  What’s  His nature, His personality, His character, His temperament, His Spirit?  As we come to know who God is, we will learn that He is believable, that He is trustworthy, that He is true, He is just, He is fair, He is…etc.  In His Word, He divinely persuades us to trust, believe, to watch, to listen, to look, to have faith that He is fulfilling His promises even when we can’t see.

So, I think I can now go back and answer some of my original questions — What does it mean?    Faith means knowing God is going to do what He says He’s going to do, even if I can’t see it happening.  What does it look like?  My outward appearance (face, words, actions) of the inward belief that He keeps His promises.  Where do I get it?  I can’t “get it,” I’m given it freely and yet I play a part.  How do I “have” more?  Learn more and more about Him, surrendering more and more to Him, believing that He is who He says He is.  Am I doing it right?  That’s a question for Him – does my life honor His unmatched commitment to me? Do I have the energy to purse it?  Do I have the desire to pursue it?   Not one bit, I have neither. But His “divine persuasion” can give me the energy to trust, and the will to seek it.  We are assured that God began a good work (faith) in us and that He will continue to use divine persuasion to perfect it in us, until He returns. Hallelujah!

I know not why God’s wondrous grace

to me is daily shown,

nor why, with mercy, Christ in love

redeemed me for his own.

I know not how this saving faith

to me he did impart,

nor how believing in his word

wrought peace within my heart.

I know not how the Spirit moves,

convincing us of sin,

revealing Jesus through the Word,

creating faith in him.

I know not when my Lord may come,

at night or noon-day fair,

nor if I’ll walk the vale with him,

or meet him in the air.

But “I know whom I have believed,

and am persuaded that he is able

to keep that which I’ve committed

unto him against that day.”