Faith - not so unreachable

It is ever so frustrating to have someone say to you, “I wish I had your faith”, when you know perfectly well there is nothing stopping them!

People of firm Christian faith are not a different species from anyone else, nor do they live on a different planet. They are not saintly Olympians who can strain every muscle to achieve world records in some hugely daunting spiritual discipline.

Persons of weak faith and those of strong faith all share a common humanity and are all alike created in God’s image. God thinks of unbelievers in exactly the same terms as He thinks of Christians: 

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord GOD, “and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV)

Two war veterans were responding to their experience of the Vietnam conflict. One declared, 

“I do not believe in God, because God couldn’t allow something so appallingly bad.” 

The other declared, 

“I believe in God, because there has to be something better than this.”  

Here, I would suggest, is the difference. Both men had endured the same things. On one level the viewpoint of the second man was just a hair’s breadth away from that of the first. On another level it was a world away. He had some faith. The other had none.

The following very thoughtful description of faith is from a Lebanese Christian who chose to stay in her own country, at great personal risk, instead of leaving to seek peace and security abroad. It comes down to five straightforward affirmations she makes about God.

Faith is:

• Expecting God to accomplish miracles through my five loaves and two fishes. He can use me.
• Rejecting the feeling of panic when things seem out of control. He is in control.
• Confidence in God's faithfulness to me in an uncertain world. He holds the future.
• Depending on the fact that God loves me, not on my ability to figure out how or why. He can be trusted.
• Thanking God for his gift of emotional health, not assuming it all stems from my ability to cope with stress. He provides.

'… I do believe; help me to overcome my unbelief' (Mark 9:24).

From “Day by Day With the Persecuted Church” (ed. Jan Pit)

Are you willing to believe 

• that God can use you? 
• That He is in control? 
• That He holds the future? 
• That He can be trusted? 
• That He provides? 

 All of these follow from the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the fact that He continues to show a prayerful interest in sinners who throw themselves on His mercy. Surely it is worth giving it a go.

And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:6)

In hope, against all human hope,
self-desperate, I believe;
Thy quickening word shall raise me up,
Thou shalt Thy Spirit give.

Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
and looks to that alone;
laughs at impossibilities,
and cries: It shall be done!

Charles Wesley, 1707-88