Is Faith a Blessing?

Life is so overwhelming at times and to make matters worse, it is very unstable and unpredictable. Things are often not what they seem to be and they keep changing. Life puts up roadblocks and forces us to take detours. Sometimes it’s hard to see past today because tomorrow looks pitch black. In addition, people are sometimes hard to understand because they see things so differently. On top of that, people are fickle—a lot of times people cannot or will do not what they said they would do. Other times people out and out lie.

If anyone’s experienced this, they are probably aware that there are a lot of insecurities, anxieties, frustration, disappointments, disillusionments, and fears that come along with this knowledge—and they’ve also discovered that it is very hard to be sure of anything.

I learned this about life at a very young age. I grew up being very skeptical and this made it hard for me to trust or to have faith in anybody or anything. But the biggest shock came to me as I was becoming an adult—I failed myself. I came to a realization that I could not live up to my own expectations, so I could not even trust myself.

It was after this realization that I was reintroduced to the Bible and Jesus. This time Jesus excited me…that is, until I started reading and thinking about what Jesus said. As I listened to what Jesus said, I started hearing myself saying things like: “Yeah, right!” “You’ve got to be kidding!” “You want me to do what?” “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say!” “You can’t possibly mean that!” But the words that made me stop dead in my tracks were, “Who do you think you are? Jesus, just who do you think you are?”

The Bible claims that the Word of God is sure and claims that Jesus is the Living Word of God. Jesus Himself said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35) Reflecting on this, I thought to myself, since I cannot put my trust in anything, and I cannot put my confidence in anyone else, much less faith in myself, I thought I’d put the Bible and Jesus to the test. So whenever I felt like I was in a vortex and my life was going down the toilet, when things seemed like they were falling apart, and when my feelings were on a roller coaster ride, I recalled what the Bible or what Jesus said and reminded myself, “But God said…,” or “But Jesus said…” Then I held on to His Words as if my life and sanity depended on it (and it did). You know something? When everything stopped spinning and shaking, I found myself okay and still standing.

Has my faith been a blessing to me? Not so much. My faith has been weak and small and unstable. It’s really not my faith that is the blessing. My blessing has come from the One in whom I can put my confidence.

I am discovering that faith is born and grows “from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17) and when I hold unswervingly to this hope I profess, I am blessed only because He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).