by Rose Murdock

Our faith in God is a powerful spiritual thing through which we can reach God in such a way that He will change our circumstances and bring evidence of Himself into our life. The more we understand this, the more we realize the power of God that is available to us here in the earth. However, as we grow in our knowledge of faith, we must be careful that we don’t begin to idolize faith itself. Faith itself is not to be worshipped, only God is. The reason faith is such a blessing is because it connects us to God, whom we can’t see with our physical eyes. Faith helps us to see the unseen and then to see it become a reality here in the earth.

In our effort to understand how faith works we’ve sometimes focused extensively on getting those things that we don’t have yet. If we’re not careful, the desire for the unseen to become a reality can become nothing more than lust. When we begin to desire a certain thing so strongly that we focus our attention on it excessively, then we are simply lusting after that thing.

We’ve made faith difficult, striving to do all the right things, say all the right things, think all the right things, in an effort to get our faith to bring us our desires. We have preached faith in such a way that we have preached ourselves into a state of discontent. We feel that our life is not complete until we get a certain thing into our life. And if it doesn’t work the way we thought it would then we feel like ‘our faith failed.’ If it does ‘work’ then we secretly pat ourselves on the back, happy that ‘our faith’ is able to fulfil our desires.

The purpose of faith is not to bring a certain thing into your life so that that thing can bring fulfillment to you. Faith is so you can have fulfillment now, in the absence of that thing. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith replaces the things hoped for. Faith gives you the peace and contentment that that thing would have given you by connecting you with the Author of peace. When we begin to think that peace comes through granted desires then we are setting ourselves up for a lifetime of discontentment. There will always be something we don’t have that we want. What an exhausting way to live, always striving to get what we don’t have. We’ve got it backwards, instead of striving for what we don’t have, God’s way is for us to flourish out of the abundance of peace and thankfulness growing in our heart.

It’s not about thanking God for all the things we don’t have yet, as if we had them, so that we can get them. But it’s about having a truly thankful heart and thanking God for what He has done for us already—particularly the salvation Jesus Christ bought for us. From that grateful, peaceful, contented heart, springs a prosperity like we’ve never seen. The minute we begin to become ungrateful for what Jesus did for us, is when we will begin to become discontent and ungrateful for all of God’s blessings in our life. What Jesus did is the foundation for our faith. No matter what happens on this earth you can always be grateful to Him for delivering you from hell. That gratitude is the foundation of your faith.

Is it wrong to thank God for His promises, even if we don’t have them yet in our life? Absolutely not. We need to, but only because we understand the reality of His Word and that His Word is more real than what we see. We do it because we have a relationship with Him and we are truly thankful for His promises. We don’t have an ulterior motive of thanking Him just so we can get something else! Sometimes we thank Him for His promises hoping to receive a thing because we are discontent and feel that that thing will bring us peace or satisfaction.

Jesus spoke about the widow who went to the unjust judge continually until he gave her what she wanted. But what did Jesus say at the end of that story? "…Nevertheless when the Son of man comes, shall He find faith in the earth"? (Luke 18:8). Faith is not stubborn persistence from a heart of discontentment. Faith is maintaining your peace, contentment and gratitude no matter what the situation in your life. It’s trusting God to bring you through in His timing. Yes it involves praying and believing that God will take care of the situation. But we’ve made faith so difficult, mostly because of our impatience and our desire to get out of the situation we’re in because we don’t like it and don’t want to go through it a minute longer. We think it’s up to us and our faith to get us out. We make it so hard. When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith He said that if they simply had faith as a grain of mustard seed then nothing would be impossible to them. (See Luke 17:6).

God will bring you through—quit trusting in your faith to bring you through, it’s God who does it. Faith simply connects us to Him, so we can trust in Him confidently and remain calm throughout the storm knowing that He will do as He promises in His Word. Simply knowing that, is enough to give us peace for today.