“The just shall live by faith.” “For we walk by faith, not sight.” “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” “And without faith it is impossible to please him.” “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things we cannot see.” This biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1.
Faith, according to dictionary.com, is: “confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof.”
I have been a believer for many, many years, based on having asked Jesus to forgive my sins and asking Him to be my Savior and Leader. Faith comes in believing that if you repent and ask for forgiveness, He grants forgiveness (1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”). But, is that enough? Is that all there is?
Truly living the life of a believer is living in faith and trust of the One who has forgiven you. That first step of faith is all-important, but it is just THE FIRST STEP! You must then learn to trust Him (Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”).
TRUST HIM! Well, if I am trusting Him to save me from Hell and take me to Heaven, that’s a BIG trust, right? Yes, but sometimes we find it more difficult to trust in the day-t0-day things that we encounter than in our eternal destination. Why is that?
Can I trust Him when people in my life disappoint me? Can I trust Him when I am afraid? Can I trust Him when I get bad news? Can I trust Him with my earthly future? “Just have faith”, they say. I say, “it is not that easy”, even though it should be.
We must learn to trust Him with the daily things. How do we do that? Well, I am going to share with you what I am learning, so come along on my journey!
Proverbs 3:5-6 is pretty clear when it says “Trust in the LORD with ALL your heart.” Trusting with all your heart leaves no room for doubt. When you sit on your dining room chair, do you have any doubt at all that it will not collapse? When you go out to start your car, do you have any doubt that when you put the key into the ignition and turn, that it will start? This NO DOUBTING is what this means. ALL YOUR HEART!
Then, there is the go-with phrase “and do not lean on your own understanding”. This is a tough one for me. I am an analyzer. I am a thinker and I like to think that I am reasonably intelligent. But, the Lord has been showing me in recent days and weeks that I cannot trust my own understanding. This is really a difficult lesson for me. But you see, if I trust my own understanding, that means I am not trusting God with my WHOLE heart! Deductively, if I trust God with ALL my heart, that doesn’t leave room for trusting anything or anyone else and it definitely doesn’t leave room for fear or the “what ifs”.
So, I began looking back at my life…years of looking back. I see two basic avenues: He has been faithful and good to me; and, many, many times I have been anything but faithful. He has been faithful when I wasn’t faithful. He has blessed me even though I didn’t deserve blessing. And the trouble in my life has largely been brought on by the times that I “leaned on my own understanding”.
So, if these are the two choices: Trust Him with ALL my heart, OR, lean on my own understanding…and I don’t want history to repeat itself, I will NOT lean on my own understanding, right? So let’s look at the day-to-day issues. We all have areas of our life that make us wonder what God is doing. We want to see the future. We want to see that it all turns out o.k. But, look back at the biblical definition as well as the dictionary.com definition: what is the common theme? Faith is having confidence in what we hope for without sight and not based on proof. There is no fear in confidence.
Dwelling on fear and the “what ifs” is a detriment to a life of faith (I am currently working on a post about the “what ifs”). It is impossible to say you trust God if you are concerning yourself about the “what ifs”. Remember, your WHOLE HEART!
My best advice to you is to make two lists: first, remembrances of God’s faithfulness to you in the past. There are several times in the Old Testament that God’s people set up “altars of remembrance” so that they could remind themselves and their children of God’s faithfulness.
Philippians 4:8-9 says “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” The second list is truths from God’s Word. A list of Who and what is TRUE, HONEST, JUST, PURE, LOVELY, of GOOD REPORT, VIRTUOUS, and PRAISEWORTHY will crowd out any room for doubt and worry!
Preparing both of these lists will take time, but it will be time well spent and an investment into your faith journey and your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. I am going to commit to sit down and write down my own “altar of remembrances”. This will be a list that when I am struggling, I can go to and remind myself of the times in my life that He has been faithful, even though I didn’t know at the time what He was doing.
Secondly, I am going to sit down and make a list of Truths on which to meditate…mostly about the Truth of Who God is. These lists will be readily available to me when I need to fill my mind with truth and to crowd out the doubt and fear and the “what ifs”.
In closing, I leave you this: He is the One Who knows the future. I can’t see even one moment ahead of the one I am presently living. Doesn’t it make sense to trust the One Who is already there and knows what it holds? Doesn’t it make sense to fill our minds with Truth and crowd out the fear and the “what-ifs”?
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