And Christ said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)

What is faith? The Webster’s defines it as:  sincerity of intentions, complete trust, and a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. It’s a word we all use every day in many situations without really understanding it. Many times we say we have faith, but our actions belie our inner belief. We simply use it like a paper plate, something that is useful for the moment, only to be discarded when we don’t need it anymore.

Faith implies loyalty, commitment, conviction. It’s a hope, a belief, and an expectation of surety, and as such is an act of reverence.  Matthew 18:18-19 says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[a] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” But, so many times we let other considerations and influences encroach upon what we say we believe, and we decide that we, not God, have the answer, the solution. We take matters into our own hands, forgetting completely about our faith, about how whatever we bind on earth is also bound in heaven.

Sometimes (and honestly, often times) we are with God as teenagers are with their parents. We roll our eyes and say, “what do you know old man?” Not understanding, or perhaps willfully forgetting, that He does know, He does have a plan, and his resources are greater and more substantial than we can even comprehend! We get impatient; we discard our faith, never understanding that when God tags someone out of our lives, and replaces them with a new player, a fresh player, it’s because of his understanding, his comprehension, and his plan for our growth. We have to take it on faith, no matter how difficult or upsetting, no matter how painful it is, we must hold fast to the knowledge that God is trustworthy, that God is binding us to what we have asked of him.

If we dissent, if we show no conviction, it’s as if we are like Adam; we tell God “NO, not your way, my way!” But, if we keep our faith, hold fast in our belief, then we are like Christ; we tell God, “If this is my cup, I shall drink all of it,” trusting that through his guidance, we will become better versions of ourselves.

~SLM