What is true faith? Most people would say it's faith without seeing. It's a feeling that you pursue relentlessly and something you feel like is pretty important. I want to challenge that and dive deeper. We all chase faith whether we realize it or not. True faith is truly a choice and it's even something else...
Has it ever dawned on you that nothing dawns on God? He always knows what to expect and yet we never do. The one person who tells you they do is lying. We can plan, we can hope, and we can dream, but we still have no idea where things are headed in our own life. We face uncertainty and moments when we question what we're doing. Is this where I should be? Is there any moving forward after this? Faith tells us to trust God in these moments.
True faith tells us to trust God in every moment. Rapper NF spells it out: "When ya healthy it's like, we don't really care for Him then / Leave me alone God, I'll call you when I need you again." Do we pray so we can get our credit with God in for the day? I have. No one is perfect, but that's a fact, not an excuse. Did you think God picked you because you were closer to perfect? Do you think God picked you because you have qualities He needs? Nope. The fact is true faith is knowing we're not enough. If you could pile up all our accomplishments: 4.0 GPA, national champion, certified _____, or whatever you could list, it'd be short. Our faith could be in our accomplishments or in our good "being enough". Faith could be in something else making our life exist, get better, or get us to the next step. True faith is seeking and believing in that fact that God made a sacrifice we can't match. We might as well fold to that fact because we won't win on our own. True faith is living in hope of something better than ourselves. We don't have to rely on the people we are, we can live for something that means more than our relatively short and unpredictable lives. True faith is that choice, but it's also something else...
Even when we think we put the rest to the side, we still glance back with the mirror. We all still somewhat live by our outward identity. People give it to us by what we do or who our personalities reflect. People and accomplishments can be great things, but if we really put these to the side, we are living by a new identity: the one we have from God. He saved us knowing we messed up. He knew exactly that time you were going to mess up and not be able to forgive yourself, but He DID forgive. Just like kindness is a choice and an identity, so is true faith. It can be part of who we are and it was meant to be who we could be. True faith is an identity and purpose worth living out.
I don't know what you think. I don't know what you believe. I do know that hope is vital. I know we all chase it. It's not just about finding hope, but it's also about making the choice and letting true faith become a part of who we are. What do you want?
