The Anatomy of Faith

Have you ever thought about that phrase “Just have faith” it’s normally used when someone is anxiously waiting for something to happen and is a bit worried that it won’t. I know you’ve used it before or someone has said it to you before. But have you ever thought about it? Have faith… in what? What is faith? What does it mean to have faith? What does faith look like? All questions I’ve been asking myself lately.

These might not be existential questions like “where do you come from” or “why are we here” or better yet, (my personal favorite) “are we alone in this universe?” — the answer is no by the way — but these questions of faith, I believe, deserve answers and I shall attempt to present them in this blog series.

Now, some of you might be the kind of people who roll your eyes and generally switch off when religious words like ”Faith” are thrown around, but before you get all dramatic and start rolling your eyes and log off, let me submit you that whatever worldview you subscribe to, we all have a certain kind of faith in something. For example, the naturalists believe that there is no God or supernatural deity that created the earth, instead, they believe in the Big Bang Theory. The thing is they can’t prove that the universe was created that way, all they know is that an atom split (an atom created from nothing), and boom matter was created. They just have faith that that is how it all happened all those years ago.

So, the question then is; the thing you put your faith in, can it be trusted? If it came under scrutiny, can it stand the test?

Now that we have established that we all have some sort of faith in something depending on our worldviews, as a Christian who believes in one Lord, in one faith, one baptism, one God, and father of all, I shall be speaking to faith in Jesus. So, the bible has several definitions about faith, one of them being Hebrews 11:1 Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. let me put this in a practical real-life situation; You’re broke no money, no job you go and open a bank account even if you have no money to put there but you do it anyway. To some, this might sound like foolishness. In this case, the evidence of your faith is the act of opening an account without seeing the money or knowing where it will come from.

There are two definitions of faith that have really stood out for me in this pursuit of answers on faith. In his sermon series crazy faith, Michael Todd breaks down faith to a formula; Which is:

Intellectual agreement + Trust = Faith

The intellectual agreement is believing something to be true. Trust is actually relying on the fact that something is true. Too many believers intellectually agree that Jesus is God and that He can do miracles but they do not put all their trust in Him. If you can intellectually believe in Him but can’t trust him you don’t actually have faith in Him.

Ravi Zacharias shares a rather profound insight in his book Jesus among other gods. He says;

“Faith in the biblical sense is substantive, based on the knowledge that the One in whom that faith is placed has proven that He is worthy of that trust. In its essence, faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is.”

In all these statements the word that keeps coming up is “trust,” you can’t have faith without trust and not trust in any random thing or a system that “works for you” your trust needs to directed to the one who, through history, has proven over and over again that He can be relied on and always comes through.

And the real test of faith comes when that thing you’ve believing in doesn’t happen, do you still run to the father or do you abandon all hope in Him and try something else?

So what is faith? It’s the confidence in Jesus Christ and who he has said He is and it’s the assurance in what He has done and can do. Faith goes beyond believing God can it is believing and trusting He can and will.

Hold on to the thoughts shared here, I will be building on them in part 2.