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I remember having coffee one time with a friend and he asked me the question that most Christians fear being asked, “Tell me about your faith.” I thought for a moment and I had to be honest with him and say I couldn’t answer there and then. So we agreed that I could go away, research the topic of faith and then talk about it further when we next met for coffee.

I went home and read everything I could find on faith. Books by laypeople, theological scholars, pastors, and so on. But after all of my reading my head was spinning and I wasn’t really any clearer as to what faith was. I read the Bible and in Hebrews 11:1 it says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and being certain of that which we cannot see. I understood this to mean that faith is knowing someone is real even though we may not physically see them – as in God.

I then looked in one of my old beat up dictionaries and the first definition it gives is that faith is to trust in another’s ability. I liked this. So, the next time I met with my friend told him that part of faith is to trust in another’s ability. I explained it this way – Suppose you go to the doctor because you’re feeling unwell, you are putting your faith in his ability to diagnose what is making you feel this way. And let’s say that you need to have surgery, again you are going to put your faith in the surgeons ability to fix you.

Think about it this way – you may not know what the surgeon is talking about, you may not have a clue as to how he or she is going to fix you, but you pray to God that they do. And so you put your faith in their ability to get the job done.

But surgeons don’t always get it right do they? They make mistakes and at the end of the day they are only human. But you see God is never ever going to get it wrong. He knows what we need before we pray, He knows what’s wrong with us before we even come to Him. And so we trust in God because we trust in His abilities. We trust that He can comfort us in times of need, provide for us, guide us, love us, and ultimately forgive us.

We put our faith in God because He has abilities that no other person has. Have you put your faith in another person only to be let down? Well I believe that God will never let us down because it’s not in His nature to let people down. He will always come through for those he loves. And so I personally put my faith in God because I believe that He is more than capable of meeting every one of my needs.

I have faith that God is working behind the scenes even though I may not see Him – Faith that He is there even in my darkest of days even though I may not be able to physically touch Him – Faith that He exists even though I may not have any tangible evidence that He really exists.

The world asks for proof and there is none apart from faith.

What is faith? It is not a feeling or emotion, it’s an experience. It’s an encounter with Jesus that refuses to let us be and calls us to follow. And it’s a trust in His abilities to save us, set us free, and walk beside us in this life and beyond.

Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
August, 2009

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