We all have a faith. Even people who don’t call themselves religious or believe there is no God. Faith is a trust, confidence or belief in something. Some people may not believe in God or in the supernatural or even in meaning, but we all still have a faith. We all put trust in something. We all believe something. We all have confidence in something, even if the only thing we are confident in is that there is nothing to be confident in.
Delve deep into yourself. Get to know who you are. What are your passions and goals? Then go a bit further, what are the values that shape your decisions? But don’t stop there. At the very core of who we are, beyond our dreams and experiences, is our faith. The set of core beliefs that shape how we see ourselves and the world. The set of beliefs that shape everything else we know and believe.
If you believe that life is meaningless, that will shape all of your decisions from there. You may believe life is meaningless, in a distant harsh God, that all people are inherently good, that you will never be happy or any other set of beliefs. If these are held in your heart, if you truly believe them, that is your faith.
Hebrew 11:1 says “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” We all have something we are confident in that we can’t see. Maybe it’s the love we have for someone. Or in the American Dream. Or just faith that tomorrow will be better (or worse).
Unseen things
A lot of people I know think it’s crazy to have faith in a God you can’t even see. To have faith and assurance in the invisible. But we all have faith in unseen things.
We have faith in gravity because we see the evidence of it. As I stand here on solid ground instead of floating off to space, I know that gravity exists.
We have faith in the people around us when they prove over and over they can be trusted. Although the future is never certain, we choose to believe in them.
We have faith in the structures that keep our society functioning the way we know it such as communication and transport networks.
Invisible fingerprints
We have faith that the sun will rise again tomorrow even though there is no guarantee it will. So we have faith in God because although we can’t see Him physically right now, we see the evidence of Him everywhere. In the sky, in the faces of the people around us. Invisible fingerprints over the events and guiding the pathways of our life.
Psalms 19 verse 1 says that even the heavens and the sky point to the glory of God. That when we look around we should see Him. We can clearly see God in Jesus, who was God in human flesh on Earth. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we are pointed to have faith in the Trinitarian God we can’t wholly see.
Christians should increase people’s faith in God too. People should see Jesus in us, see the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The light that shines out of us should illuminate the darkness and open blind eyes. What sort of faith do you have? What are the core beliefs that shape your life?
Learning what faiths someone holds is an excellent way to start a conversation about your own faith in God. We may not all have a faith in God, but we do all believe something.