Seeking Faith

Where does faith come from?  What is faith?  How do we 'acquire' faith? 

In the New Testament, in several places, Abraham is called the Father of Faith, the father of them that believe God.  So it would seem logical that we would ask how Abraham himself came unto faith, into belief, into trust in Yahweh, Who spoke unto him and Who led him from "his father's house unto a land I will show you."

Looking at the story of Abraham, it is clear that faith is not something we ourselves conjure up or manufacture within our own hearts.  Rather, faith is a response to the action of God, to something God Himself has done for us or said to us.  Here is a simple example from a purely human experience: 

During the week following Katrina's arrival on the Gulf Coast, I found myself in a shelter, cut off from my family and not knowing whether my husband was alive or dead.  Gradually, from those who had satellite radios, we began to hear about the horror of Lake Pontchartrain seeping into the city of New Orleans.  At one point, the rumor spread throughout the shelter:  The French Quarter was covered by 28 feet of water.  Now that rumor was false, but I had no way of knowing that, and my husband was trapped, for all I knew, in the Old Ursuline Convent on Chartres Street in the Quarter.  Soon my imagination took over, and I began to picture him as dead.  One of the policemen manning our shelter noticed the look of distress on my face and asked me what was troubling me.  I told him that I thought my husband was dead.  "He's okay," Captain Bishop told me; "Trust me; I have a sixth sense about these things."  For some reason, I believed him, although there was no way he could have known for sure whether my husband was alive or not.  A peaceful calm settled over my spirit when he said, "Trust me."  And I believed him.  From that time on, I had no doubt whatsoever that Chuck was alive and okay. 

Supernatural faith is just like human faith.  It is not something we "hope" is true, something we are struggling to convince ourselves is true -- it is a peaceful and calm response to God's words or actions on our behalf.  The Bible is not a series of ethical teachings, nor is it a social feeling nor a sympathy for all of life; it is first and foremost a book of stories of how God has acted in history and in individuals.  It is a recital of the gracious and redemptive acts of God.

To say that we have 'faith' is to tell a story of what God has done for us.  To share our faith is to share our stories with one another.  Yesterday, I met someone for lunch who graciously shared with me a couple of times when God Himself bent down to her distress and bestowed that "peace that passes all understanding," and "drew her clear from the waters that threatened to drown her," in biblical language.  Hearing her stories, her real-life experiences of the graciousness and redemptivness of God's sweet love toward us strengthened my own faith and sent me on my way dancing for joy at the God who is so good to His people. 

When we share our faith, it is not our ideas, our theology, our philosophy that we share, but our concrete stories of what God has done for us.  These are the stories that bring us home, that settle us in the land of promise, that convince us that God has not abandoned us to our own devices.  Faith brings confidence to us -- what God has done once, He will do again.  David had the faith to meet Goliath without shield or armor because he had been a shepherd:  When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from its flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth...the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine (I Sam. 34-37).

The New Testament tells us that faith comes from hearing -- and hearing comes from the word of the Lord.  Once the Lord has spoken to us, as He spoke to Abraham, as Captain Bishop spoke to me in my distress, we believe and we go forth in calm assurance that He will not deceive or mislead us.  Once we hear what He has done for others, we can dare to believe that He will do the same for us.  It is no good telling people to 'believe' if they have not first heard our stories of what God has done for us. 

If I could design a retreat, I would simply ask the participants, "What has God done for you?"  Tell us your story and its effects on your life.  Hearing one after another the real-life experiences of others would surely send us all on our way with increased faith in the One Who bends low to rescue His people and to draw them clear from the Katrina-like waters of life.