Faith.
It’s a word we hear all the time. It’s one of the main words people use when talking about spirituality, but until I was on the race, I actually never stopped to really understand what faith means. In the dictionary, there are 2 definitions for faith:
- complete trust or confidence in someone or something
- strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.
“Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” If having faith means to trust, we have to ask the question “what do I trust in?” I think most Christians would say “Jesus” which is great, but I don’t think we should stop there. I think we have to go deeper and ask “why do I trust Him?” My answer to this question used to be “because He says to.” Although I’m not wrong, God doesn’t just leave us there. If I trust a person, that means they’ve done something to earn my trust. In our personal lives, the Lord does the same thing. He tells us why we should trust Him and works in some incredible ways to each of us individually. We begin to see how He really does love us and is a good Father.
Last week, my team worked at a medical camp in India. It was an amazing experience, and we got to see 1500 receive medical treatment! On one of the days, I was put in the prayer tent to pray for the patients and healing over them. One of the women, about 80 years old, came in with a bright, toothless smile. She couldn’t have been more than 5 ft tall, and she joyfully sat down right beside me. As I began to pray for her, I put my hands over her eyes to pray for healing. She had very bad cataracts. Suddenly, when she realized what I was doing, she grabbed my hand and forced it on to her knee. My intuition told me that she had knee problems, as well, so I prayed for her knee too. After I prayed for her knee, she forced my hand on to her stomach. And again, I prayed over her stomach. When I was done, she ran out of the tent yelling “God bless you! Hallelujah! Amen!” in Mar (their native language).
To be honest with you, I don’t know if she got healed, and I probably will never find out. But the Lord taught me a really cool lesson that day- the Lord continues to built trust with me and deepen my faith which is amazing because it shows how gentle and merciful our Savior is. However, if the Lord says He is a healer, why don’t I just trust Him? The Lord doesn’t have to keep showing me over and over again why I should trust Him because He already did- on the cross. The weight of that is simply enough.
That little lady had really big faith that she could be healed because she believed that Jesus is who He says He is. When we have faith in God’s character, we are able to see more of Him and witness the depths of who He is.
From now on, I will look for the ways in which the Lord is faithful and shows me why I can trust Him, but I will also fix my gaze back on the cross!
