We all know people that we see as having great faith. We wonder how their relationship with the Lord can be so strong and seem so intimate when ours seems to wax and wane.

Hebrews 11 is called the hall of faith because it lists several people who had faith in what God said or what He could do. In that list of very different people, God showed us examples of what faith is: complete trust or confidence in Him.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb 11:1. Having faith can be hard because the very fact that it is faith means we don’t know the future. It is having complete trust in God. It’s trusting that He’s in control, even when we can’t see it. Sometimes it only takes a little faith to allow the Lord to do great things. At other times, stronger faith is needed.

In reality, we can’t even have great faith on our own. Our faith only grows when we fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfector of our faith (Heb 12:2). We can learn to let go and increase our faith if we keep our focus on Him.

My grandma put it like this: “Faith drops its letter in the post office box and lets it go.” That statement puts it very simply. You give the Lord whatever “it” is, having confidence that He can take care of it because He is God, and you let it go. It’s like giving Him the trash and letting Him have the stinky stuff. That doesn’t mean giving it to Him and then taking it back (which is very difficult to do with some things). But we have to realize that if we can’t control it, we can’t control it. It does no good to fret over things we have no control over. Asking for more faith usually means that we will be given something to exercise that faith over! So think before you ask for more faith (or patience for that matter). Sometimes having faith means letting go several times a day. At other times, it is easy, but it is always worth the effort.

Where is your faith today?

From AllWorship friend Pam Rehbein