This verse challenged me in my quiet time one Thursday morning. I was also reading about the birth of Jesus in Matthew that morning and God seemed to connect the dots in my head, relating all the passages I had read that morning. They all led to one question that I kept asking myself—how big is my faith?
Is my faith on fire only on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights when I'm at church? Does it dim down during the week, causing me to believe that God isn’t really present in all my moments, or do I walk in expectation that God will move in my life? Can my faith be just as strong when I'm kneeling at the altar as when I'm having a rough day at home?
I believe that the answer is yes. Your measure of faith is not meant to be defined by your circumstances. Of course, it’s so much easier to believe big for your life when you’re in this huge moment of worship than it is to believe that God is good during an exhausting week of stress and anxiety. But God hasn’t called you to believe only when you feel like believing. He wants you to have uncompromised faith in Him even when it’s hard.
As I was reading about the birth of Jesus, the words seemed to speak so much to me! I realized that many people we read about in the Bible didn’t have comfortable, easy walks as they fulfilled the mission that which God had called them. They didn’t have daily encounters with angels and although their days were blessed with miracles, most of those miracles weren’t extremely obvious. They didn’t see Jesus walking on water or multiplying food every day. I can imagine that it must have been HARD most days to believe that God would be faithful to fulfill what He had promised.
Think about Mary who placed her entire trust in the Holy Spirit even when everyone around her didn’t believe that what God had told her was true. She was misunderstood and misjudged, yet she clung to God’s promises and was rewarded for her perseverance. Think of the unwavering faith in God that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had as they were being prepared to be tossed into scorching flames as young men, of the undivided loyalty that Esther had when she risked death as a young woman to rescue the Lord’s people from a jealous man, of the unrelenting courage that David had as a boy as he opposed a nine-foot giant and defeated him in the name of the Lord.
These heroes are not any different from us! When I read about the men and women in the Bible, I have to remind myself that they aren’t just fictional characters. I have to remind myself that they really existed in a real world and the obstacles and trials they faced—and the miracles they encountered—were REAL. That meant that their faith had to be real. They had to have real, unshakeable, uncompromised faith even when they couldn’t see God moving.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” So even when our unsaved friends or family reject Jesus again and again, by faith, we can still believe that God will save them. By faith, we can be certain in what we do not see. We can be confident that God is faithful and we can be confident that He can and will do mighty things in our lives!
Do you have the kind of faith where you walk through your day, however routine or mundane it may be, expecting God to move? Is your faith rooted in Christ every moment of the day, every day of the week? Is your faith growing daily? God wants you to trust Him enough so that when He wants to use you mightily, you will be ready to respond to His leading. You have to have big faith if you believe in a God of big miracles.
How big is your faith?
Wow...this is my second time reading this but I feel like it means even more to me know than it did the first time. Beautiful. The days are so crazy and it's so nice to know that we can place our faith in God and trust that he will never disappoint us. :) He is SO good. Always.
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