Dear Faith....teach me.

I have had this odd misconception that faith is the same as trust, however, it's not. Strangely enough, they do go hand in hand, along with hope, but they are not the same.

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Hebrews 11:1 (NLT). I believe that faith is the foundation of everything we believe in. It is how we justify our trust in the Father. We say things like "well, my 'faith' is Christianity." We're saying, "my foundation of belief is in Christ." Have you ever thought about that? No, it's nothing profound, but sometimes we get caught up in Christianese so much that we don't realize what we're saying. When we say our faith is Christianity, we're saying "hey, this is what I'm grounded in. This is WHO and WHAT I believe in even though I can't see it. It's the reason I live, the drive for my beliefs, the basis of my decisions and choices, etc."

I find myself being caught in a place where I have to constantly remind myself of the Faith I have in Jesus. Not in who He is. Not in what He's done. But my faith believing He keeps His promises. He promises that He will "never leave us or forsake us." Even when we feel abandoned, He is always there with open arms. His love is everlasting, unending, forever, infinite.

So we take these giant leaps of "FAITH" "HOPING" that we will make it to the other side safely when we cannot see because through it we learn to "TRUST" God. I find it interesting that these things are not part of the fruits of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Where is faith, hope and trust? I don't know why they aren't there, but it's something I'm looking into. Maybe it is because it's an action...something that requires you to put personal effort into. It's not something that you can inherit from your genes, from your "sweet little grandmother who was the most patient person on Earth." It's things that you must work to grasp the concept of. You can't practice having "goodness" but you must practice having "faith."

So, as I was reading, in Hebrews 11 it gives all these examples of acts of faith that people in the Old Testament did. It's amazing. Some of these things, people are being humiliated or in some way being emotionally hurt. Abraham sacrificing his own son, Noah looking like a fool prophesying the flood was coming, Moses rejecting the life of royalty for a life of oppression, Joshua marching around a wall....a WALL.... for seven days. I could go on.

You see that God tests our faith. He says, "do this." But we don't. He says, "Go." But we won't. In the end of all these stories, God came through with His promises because the people had faith in God that His will was perfect. That in the end, He would keep His promise. Not a specific promise like, "I'm gonna save your son Isaac, but just take him to the mountaintop just to see if you'll do it." It's the promise that "God works for the good of those who love Him,"--- those type of promises.

It says in verse 35 that by faith "Women received their loved ones back again from death, while others were tortured, refusing to be set free." Faith is part of our freedom in Christ. We must allow the faith to flow freely in our lives so that we can trust the Father in everything that we do and everything HE does. So have faith in who He is. Have faith in His great works. Believe His promises are true. In turn, you will learn to have Hope for the future, which gives you a positive outlook on life and you will be able to Trust the Lord with your whole life, not hiding anything from Him.

written 11.18.2007