There are things in life we are incapable of comprehending in practice as they seem obstinately intent on dwelling in the province of theory. And some things can only be properly understood when they finally find their home in the bosom of practice. Such is the nature of Faith.
The common definition of Faith is a "belief that is not based on proof". The Bible boldly defines
Faith as the "evidence of things not seen".
The word "evidence" speaks not so much about the undeniable reality of the
unseen things - which we erroneously take to mean things that do not really exist - as to the substance of Faith itself.
The reality of Faith is confirmed by its own
disclosure in the depths of men's hearts about matters that are not yet revealed. It does not rest on experience though it can be nurtured by it - but is rather an inner
assurance of the certainty of things unseen. Faith itself is no less real than the unseen things upon which it is grounded. It is the deposit of the promised - and therefore imminent - from the creator of all things seen and unseen.
But Faith is not the same thing as belief in God's existence. One may believe that God exists but have no
confidence in his power or authority; conversely, one can not have real Faith and believe that God does not
exist, as he is the author and finisher of our Faith.
Hence Faith in God rests in the uncompromising
integrity of his character.
When we begin to question His integrity we yearn for visible evidence of the things that can not be seen. We crave for outward
signs, and wait in growing exasperation, assailed by the fear that God has perhaps
turned his back for a moment, or worse, that he has taken the liberty to keep us in
suspense.
This craving for visible signs, or miracles, on which to anchor one's Faith, is rooted on the misapprehension that genuine Faith is grounded on empirical evidence. Yet both the Israelites and Jesus' disciples, who personally witnessed
breathtaking manifestations of God's power that often contravened the very laws of nature,
failed miserably
when called upon to reaffirm their Faith in Him.
The type of Faith that
enabled them to ultimately stake their very lives upon the truth of their
convictions was not theirs until it was divinely bestowed on them. Incidentally, it was the things perceived by their senses as seemingly
hopeless circumstances for which they were to reserve their most unsparing skepticism.
Such moments of crisis in faith stem from the notion that Faith is a kind of gentleman's agreement between us and God.
This alleged mutual pact--or gambit, as it should be more properly called - is contingent upon the premise that as long as God does not disappoint us, we will voluntarily surrender a portion of our autonomy and vouchsafe what in reality is a strictly conditional and rather
frail trust in him.
Suffice it to say that if God was to bind himself to a similar pledge with the stipulation that we honor our share of the responsibility to remain faithful to him, not an hour would pass before he is fully justified in recanting his lot in the bargain. The supreme irony is that God remains ever
faithful in spite of our recurrent faithlessness.
Still we often find ourselves disillusioned with God; especially when we are thrust into one of those ineffable seasons of life, during which we are unable to arrive at any logical explanation why God seems
hesitant to intervene and relieve us of our affliction, or at least provide immediate and satisfactory reasons for why we are suffering in the first place.
The implication here is that God somehow got
distracted with other matters of more significance and left us exposed to the unforeseen consequences of his neglect, which results in unjust and unnecessary hardship for us.
It is often at such junctures that Faith is either
strengthened or its
superficiality is laid bare, depending on what it is that we understand Faith to be in the first place. This is why many blame the loss of what they once believed to be genuine Faith to an inexplicably arduous season of hardship.
Our natural response in such a predicament is to invest our supplications, which are presumably rendered in Faith, with a mysterious magical element, designed to cast a spell on God with the purpose of gently coercing him into executing what we deem to be the appropriate remedial action.
But Faith is more that a trust in the power of incantations; it is an utter confidence - far beyond the concept of loyalty - in the absolute
benevolence of God's designs, in spite of how heartless or indifferent they may initially appear to our vantage.
True Faith is not meant to be such a fragile thing that it can be so easily snuffed out of existence by hardship. Rather than see hardship as the enemy of Faith, we may assuredly welcome it as provision for its maturity. And even the smallest measure of real Faith can prove unyielding to seemingly insurmountable hurdles of fear and doubt.
In fact, what the scriptures emblemize as the ideally receptive posture in which Faith finds itself most at home is the state of
innocence. We may reckon Faith hidden from anyone who has not yet attained to the spiritually exalted realms of the ancient mystics and saints, but the scriptures reassure us that Faith in its purest and most robust form is readily found in the unencumbered heart of a
child.
It follows that Faith is not the fruit of our own labor. It is more of a shepherding from the master to freely abandon ourselves to his providence. It is the offspring from a seed first scattered in
surrender and watered by
obedience, to the will of him who is the only one capable of making Faith grow.
