How is Faith Affecting Your Circumstances?

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

What are some words that pop into your mind when you try to define the word faith? Confidence, trust,  assurance, reverence, righteousness, obedience, belief, action, sacrifice, submission and surrender all sound like valid synonyms for faith. However, I would surmise that these aren’t merely word substitutions, but rather, components of true faith. 

For example, I may have a holy fear of God and I may take steps of obedience with action in response to that fear, but am I obeying out of fear of punishment or some other reason? Or am I obeying because I truly believe God is who He says He is, that His promises are true and trust that He is the One leading my life?  Do I truly believe God can answer what I am praying for or that He will?

Hebrews 11 gets to the point of all this faith talk. Verse 6 says that it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God without faith because if we go to Him and we don’t believe in Him or believe that He rewards those of us who earnestly seek Him, we aren’t truly seeking Him. Furthermore, Matthew 7:7-8 says we must ask, seek and knock! If we ask Him for something, we will receive — if we seek Him, we will find Him —and if we knock, a door will be opened. These are true promises from God to us. But, those verses do not say that we will get what we want when we want it by the way we want it. Therefore some people  believe that God is silent and that He withholds good from His people and that He shuts door after door on us. How could His promises be true if that is how we see Him? Why can’t an answer of “no” or a “different” opened door be God’s answer to us?

Is it true that we all lack faith at times? I am not so sure. To put it directly… you either have true faith & choose faith or you’re still working on it! It is a process that comes from being in a relationship with Him, having experiences with Him and by the testimonies of others.  The truth is, every single day we will each face a test of our faith and will be faced with a choice– cling to an unrelenting  faith or allow a “faith substitute” to be exposed and rely on that instead. We will either continue to claim the Lord’s sovereignty over our lives and circumstances, or we will choose to come up with a solution of our own making that works with our timeline.

Sometimes we place our faith in substitutes like our retirement account balance, our lawyer, our job, our parents or our marriage. All of these are improper foundations for true faith. They are powerless to provide stability and security. They cannot heal physical ailments and they cannot heal a broken heart. A faith substitute can also look like walking in our own will with our own abilities. We tell God what we want and ask Him to approve the plan. But then when we don’t receive what we want or our plan never comes to fruition, we wonder if God is mad at us, forgotten us or is outright ignoring our petitions. We stomp our feet and foolishly continue our own path and fulfill our own will, until we hear otherwise from God. We justify and say that down the road we will deal with the fallout of this, if it is bad and we cross our fingers once and move on without even listening for God. We check off the biblical boxes of church attendance and tithing and pat ourselves on the back.  I’m not so sure that this is a lack of faith, but rather a choice to be unfaithful.

In Hebrews 11:1, two significant words are mentioned: confidence and assurance. How can we be confident in something we plan and how can we be assured that it will be a success? What we are likely feeling is capable and positive about what we are doing- but let’s be very clear here – capability is not confidence and positivity is not assurance.

Think of Abraham and God leading him to a place where he would have to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Was God leading him to sacrifice his son or was God leading him to a place of full faith? Noah was given an impossible assignment from God, but was God leading him to nonsensical hard work or was He leading him to save humans from extinction and into him becoming the “heir of righteousness” that comes from faith? The point is, sometimes what the Lord asks us to do is quite sacrificial and makes no sense at all. Yet, if we choose to respond in obedience, we find that it is our true FAITH in Him that makes us choose wisely. And with every wise choice, we find ourselves closer to the Lord and our faith confirmed and strengthened. That is when we experience the confidence and assurance that is mentioned in Hebrews 11.  

So, in taking an honest look at your own faith, do you see some faith “substitutes” in any areas of your life? Do these “substitutes” exist because of a hidden sin in your life? What areas of your life do you get anxious about because in the natural world you don’t have the resources you think you need?

Talk to the Lord in prayer. Give Him the long version of your most honest, deepest, heart wrenching fears, worries, hurts and habits. Say it all, because there isn’t anything you can hide from Him anyway. This will help to surrender every circumstance in your life that causes worry to arise within us.  And commit to open and read His word daily.  Sometimes, just reading one verse can boost your faith in Him and relieve all other negative emotions stirred up inside.

God wants you to see that He is in total control, and He loves you and He loves being in relationship with you!  Allow the Holy Spirit to be the One to take charge of your life. He will warn and prompt you with every decision and choice that comes. God truly wants the best for you and He truly wants your TOTAL faith in him. He wants to share His will for your life with you and it pleases Him for you to rely on Him and His will fully. 

The more time I spend with Him, the more He opens my eyes.

Is He opening yours, too?