It is so easy, like Peter, to step out with a conviction of faith onto the surface of the water, eyes riveted on Jesus, and believe fully in the power of God working in our lives. I believe it is easier still to see how God has led us somewhere out in the middle of a lake that’s a bit choppier than we bargained for and lose the faith that got us into the realm of the miraculous to begin with. We pray for something for years and when we see God moving us into the answer we wanted we can’t believe it because it stretches us beyond what we thought was possible. Or we are delivered from a pressing danger and think God saved us by the skin of our teeth rather than by His enormous ocean of grace. Most often, however, we recognize with great spiritual hindsight how God pulled us through our difficulties but doubt He can get us through our present dangers.
We are in good company. When we take a look at that great hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11 we see some amazing men and women whom the writer says the world wasn’t worthy of. Receiving their dead back, shutting mouths of lions, chalking up great victories. And suffering, dying, getting tortured for their faith. But when we dig down, we also find so many of them who did not always live out their faith. Rather, they gave in to fear and worry and chose to do things their own way instead of God’s way. I think in our times of weakness, we can be encouraged to know that people like us can become people like them. How?
First, I think we need to recognize faith is a journey, not a destination. Paul alluded to this in I Corinthians 13 when he said that many gifts will pass away but that faith, hope, and love remain as we move toward what God wants us to be. We are getting ever closer to God until we finally reach the goal of faith, the salvation of our souls (I Peter 1:9). Faith, therefore, must be applied to our entire lives in our ever-changing circumstances until God ultimately calls us home. Home is the destination – faith gets us there.
Second, we’ll hamstring ourselves with notions that since only God is perfect, we don’t need to try. Paul makes clear in Ephesians 4:13ff that spiritual maturity is possible now. Faith is the critical ingredient. He uses future tense, comparing us to babies in comparison to what we will be, growing, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Whole. Fullness. That’s strong, definitive, end-game-in-this-life language we dare not ignore.
Finally, one of my favorite Proverbs is Proverbs 13:20, which tells us to walk with the wise so we will become wise. It’s the same with faith! If we want to be people of faith, we need to walk with people of faith! The writer of Hebrews speaks of a cloud of witnesses in chapter 12, referring again to that hall of fame of faith in chapter 11. But that hall of fame is not limited to those in our Bibles. It’s also about those we are with in our church homes. That’s why the same author makes a point of telling us to keep meeting together (Hebrews 10:25)! From our family’s personal experience, I can tell you one of the biggest helps to the strengthening of our faith has been to be with those whose faith is strong, learning their wisdom, learning to be patient, learning to see Jesus. Do I do it perfectly yet? No – but I’m working on it. And we’ll get there together….