As I get older, (or as my daughter says “a.k.a. more mature), I realise that God tends to take our prayers seriously.
When I pray, and I ask for patience… God seems to give me situations in which to practice and grow my patience. (My wife asked for sixpack abs for me, and God gave me a rowing machine… 😉… so there seems to be a theme here…)
When it comes to matters of Faith, I will confess that I have often exclaimed to God and asked like the father of the possessed boy in the Gospel of Mark when he asked Jesus to heal his son… if He can… Jesus responded that anything is possible for him who believes, and…
“At that the boy’s father cried out, “I have Faith; help my lack of Faith!”
(Mark 9:24 CEB)
I can just feel this man’s urgency when he cries out to Christ to supply him with the Faith he is lacking… and Jesus comes through… both for the man and his son…
But when his own disciples asks for a Faith increase, they get scolded?
It’s a well-known piece in Luke:
”The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our Faith!”
He replied, “If you have Faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
(Luke 17:5-6 NIV)
Wouldn’t it be awesome if Jesus just gave us Faith? I think it would be, but it would almost be tantamount to removing our free will to choose to love God, to serve Christ. So I do believe that Christ gives us a bit of His Faith for a task when we ask (James 1:6) , but a strong permanent Faith? That one, we have to grow ourselves!
The understanding of this came when I read a few verses further. Jesus had an encounter with 10 men with leprosy. (another well-known story) He sent them off to go show themselves to the priest, (as per the custom of the time). Only one realised that they had been healed. And only one returned to thank Jesus… But that is the small detail.
When He sent them, they were not healed yet… The man who came back realised that he was healed while traveling to the priests.
They had to step out in Faith and go, before knowing or seeing the result. The stepping out in Faith was part of the healing process.
Why would this be?
Psychologist, James Fowler, breaks the development of faith into six stages. The first is like a small child that has “faith” that someone will show up with food, and someone will take care of their needs. And so it progresses through life stages, where a child accepts what it is told by a parent or a teacher to be true, etc.
But there is a point where faith needs to be tested and proven real. If it is not questioned and tested, we will never have our own “Faith”, we will always live on the faith someone else told us exists. Asking for it, hoping to “receive” it, but somehow always doubting… And when their Faith falters for a moment, so does “ours” because we have been borrowing theirs the whole time.
Let me put it in a practical light. If you start out with archery and bowhunting, you will have a lot of questions. Will this kill an animal, will the arrow even pierce the skin? It’s so light, its so slow… lots of doubts. But a seasoned bowhunter will share their faith, Yes it will, all of your fears are legitimate, but unfounded… You… Are… Fine!
So you live on hope. Someone else’s faith, a borrowed faith, if you will, until the day you go out on your own hunt, and you draw back the arrow and shoot… The arrow flies true and you harvest your first buck. Not only did the arrow hit, or penetrate, it went straight through!. At that moment, the “borrowed faith” becomes true and trusted. Now it is your Faith! and your faith becomes a Testimony. Truth (or reality, if you will) was established at that moment. You questioned what you “know”, you tested the faith and it became yours!
But if you never shoot the arrow, you will never really know… you will always only be dependent on someone else’s stories…
”Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(Hebrews 11:1 NKJV)
The 10 lepers responded because of the faith of others. People told them about Jesus and what He can do, and they lived on that belief, right up to the point where Jesus sent them to the priests.
At that point, they had to make a decision. They needed to test their faith, proof it. Question it, and make it part of themselves. Once they did that, they started walking, and the miracle took place.
Each one of us needs to get to the point where we question our beliefs. We need to ask hard questions and be satisfied that the answers are true and solid. Only then will we go from believing what others have told me into a true: I Believe! Faith. A Faith that is part of your whole being. A Faith that you live out, not a faith you believe in because the pastor told us to.
That is the process that Jesus took with His disciples, and they each got there on their own time. But when they did, it was their Faith, fully and completely, and miracles followed, Just like Jesus said it will.
So what happens when I ask God for Faith…? Well… instead of Faith, He gives me opportunities to practice my faith that was given me, so that when the time comes, I am ready.
”Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
(James 1:2-3 NIV)
”And then as your endurance grows even stronger, it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.”
(James 1:4 TPT)
Sit with yourself in the next few days, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal a gap in your Faith, a spot where you can challenge it, test it and grow…. I am pretty sure that you will know exactly where you are short before you get to the end of this sentence!
But remember… like a gym, this requires action, not just a membership!
Be blessed!
