Growing In Grace Part 1: Did my Faith Fail me?

            After my miscarriage, I ran through every possible cause in my head, did I drink too much caffeine? Did I eat too much sugar? Did I not rest enough? Did I not exercise enough? Did I just not want the baby bad enough? Did I not have enough faith that God would provide for that baby?

We all have heard people say, “You just gotta have faith.” People say it in both simple and complicated situations, they throw it out like you can just reach into your pocket and pull out some faith, or maybe you can stop by the supermarket and pick some up- you just gotta get it because “you just gotta have faith.”

            I have heard people claim “faith” over people on life support saying that if they just have “faith” the person would rise up and walk out of the hospital-and then they died. Did the people praying for them just not have enough faith?

            When my son died I did not even have a chance to exercise “faith” I did not even find out he was dead until he already had been for days. How does faith play in a situation like that?

            When we treat faith like something we can just muster up and use to get what we want, we are forgetting where it comes from.  “The measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Rom 12:3) God is not waiting for you to prove your faith in him so that he can lavish you with blessings. Any faith you have comes from him to begin with; He is assigning it to you!

            If we are looking to ourselves for more faith, we will always come up empty handed. If we look to who went as far as the cross to bear our burdens, he will not leave us without faith, he will sustain us. 

            There is no amount of faith that can change the path that God has sovereignly laid out for you, but when trials hit and winds of grief are blowing over you, and clear skies are nowhere to be seen, “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”  (Heb 12:2) he will bring you through this to the end he will “finish” our faith.

             Do not ever wonder if your lack of faith has brought trials into your life, that is not how our loving and merciful God works. Sometimes the trials are the blessing. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1) Our faith is not in what will come to pass in this life, but what God will accomplish in eternity. He will one day make all things new. Although there is pain, anguish and death now, by faith we can look forward to when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:3). 

       Have faith, ask the Lord to give you faith. Do not expect your faith to spare you from trials, but with it you may endure trials. In faith, we may suffer in such a way to glorify God, but more on that next week.