March 31

The Development of Faith

During the terrible days of the World War II Blitz, a father in London was holding his small son by the hand as they ran from a building that had been struck by a bomb. In the front yard, was a shell hole from a previous bomb. Seeking shelter as quickly as possible, the father jumped into the hole and held up his arms for his son to follow. Terrified, yet hearing his father's voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, "I can't see you!"
The father, looking up against the sky tinted red by the burning buildings, called to the silhouette of his son, "But I can see you, jump!" The boy jumped, because he trusted his father. The Christian faith enables us to face life, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are seen; not that we know all the answers, but we know who does have the answers.

We live in Connecticut during a period of time when faith is seen as weakness. Faith is scorned and even ridiculed these days. Yet I say everyone lives by some sort of faith. The scientist has faith in the lightning striking primordial goop and forming the 4 billion bits of information in the simple cell. The agnostic looks at the 5000 different processes in the human body and says, “coincidence.” But we are the people of faith. And in our reading today, we see four truths about faith.

1. Faith doesn’t make us immune from the difficulties of life. The Philistine warrior Goliath was nearly 10 feet tall. That makes our elder Jim Rumsey look like a dwarf. The difficulties of life make us strong. If you were to go back and examine the times your faith grew the most, it would be during the times of greatest difficulty. The truth is that in the darkness of our classroom we learn the most. Life is like a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff of which he is made. Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great preacher said, “The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction." We are all faced with brilliant opportunities that are hidden as unsolvable problems. We need to develop the faith perspective whenever we face these difficulties.

2. Faith endures even when ridiculed. How many times did people try to talk David out of his plan or try to alter it? By my count, there were three attempts. To follow the path of faith means that at times, we will have to walk alone. The faith pathway is rarely walked by the crowd. You plus God, is a majority.

3. Faith is developed not inherited. David wasn’t instantly zapped with faith, his faith was grown. There were small steps of faith before he was asked to take a big one. Faith doesn't exempt us from preparation. David's skill with a sling was developed over many hours practicing out on the hillside. David had two pre‑season games, one was against the Lions the other against the Bears. We won’t jump into the big arena if we are fearful of trusting God in small ones.

4. Finally, faith must rest in the proper place. The object of David’s faith was the Lord. The philosophy of “fideism” is having faith in faith. David had faith in his own skills and abilities, but he ultimately had overwhelming faith in the God who would win the victory. From King Saul’s perspective, Goliath was too big to hit. From David’s perspective, Goliath was too big to miss. So how do we balance confidence in ourselves and faith in God? There are two extremes, one sits around and waits for God to fight their battles. The other goes out and wins the battle in human strength. How do we balance this? The answer is in the reason David fought. David was ultimately concerned about the reputation of God. When we fight for God’s name and not our name, then we have the proper resting place for our faith.

Go out and grow your faith today.