I do believe

I do believe but help me in my unbelief.

What is belief? What is faith? Does it matter in our times of unbelief?

I think about faith a lot. I talk about faith a lot. I maybe even, quite possibly argue about faith a lot.

Just to be clear I don’t argue about whether you have faith or not. That’s between you and God. My general bone of contention is a discussion about how much faith someone has, or how much they need, or how you can make it grow.

But I’ve come to realise over the past few days that most of the time I might just be arguing about how I define faith.

For me, I see faith as something that is fixed.

You either have faith or you don’t.

Having said that I find there are lots of situations in a church context, a religious context or amongst Christians, where the discussion shifts to growing our faith. There may even have been times in my life when I have heard people say something didn’t happen for them because they didn’t have enough faith. While it may be a whole other topic, I don’t believe God’s provision in our life is based on how much faith we possess.

Hence the arguing part; I have kept saying, you can’t get more faith.

But here is where my learning and understanding has evolved recently, and let me say this only happens when I am willing to listen and hear. Oh, and it helps to have a pastor who has been willing to patiently talk out, talk through, and walk with me in my thinking and processing.

My argument as it is, is based in semantics, and the Bible is chock a block full of words that have a variety of meanings, based on context and language, causing issues with understanding, and more often than not, application.

From there it’s about recognising the words that are synonyms of faith, or elements of our faith, and that they can change and grow.

So, if you’re still with me this is what I mean.

A biblical definition of faith can be found in Hebrews 11:1 “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see.” (NIV)

Now in the context of this discussion I am talking about faith in God. We are talking about our belief in the fact that God exists. Our belief in a God we cannot see and yet is the centre of our hope. This is what we define as faith, and what defines our faith.

I cannot have more belief in God. My belief is fixed. I believe God exists.

I do.

This is not something that I question.

It is not something that changes, grows or takes on a different form.

I understand the difference between me and someone without faith is simply they cannot, do not, are unable, to believe in something they cannot see.

This is faith because I believe in the existence of something I cannot see, and I rest assured in that, and am confident of the hope that belief provides.

There is nothing that could make me believe more. Essentially my argument has always been I can’t get more faith in God because I cannot believe more that He exists. He either does or He doesn’t. There is no more.

I now understand the point I end up arguing is not about our faith in God’s existence, but instead our ability to trust that God will give us the hope He promises.

Trust is the issue we have as humans.

We do not do trust well.

We question, we control, we try to second guess, and we like to take on a challenge before we release it to God. That is not a reflection of our faith in God, but instead it’s about our trust. It causes us to question our belief in what God can do.

It is the unbelief in our belief.

When Jesus encounters the father who asks for help with his child who is experiences seizures due to an impure spirit in Mark 9, the focus is on belief. It is our belief, our trust, our confidence, in God’s ability that waivers, not our faith in His existence.

The father asks for Jesus to help ‘if he can’. Of course, Jesus can, and the father knew it because his faith was firmly in place. But he recognised his doubt came from his fear and concern for his child. He did not ask for more faith; he didn’t need it. He needed the confidence to overcome his unbelief.

When we look at the words in the bible that are used for faith, they are equally used in places to describe trust, confidence, hope and more. This is the part of faith, the elements of faith that we need more of.

We need to practice trusting God so we can live out our belief practically. In other words, we need to have faith in our faith. We need to grow our confidence in the fact that God will do what He promises He will do.

We need to have faith in our faith. We need to believe in what we believe. We need to trust in what we know is true. At the centre of this is God, who is true and faithful at all times, and in all places.

I do believe, I do have faith, I do trust you Lord, but please God help me in my moments of unbelief to grow my faith in you.