If I were to ask you to define what is having faith in God, what would you say? If you were to make a new friend while shopping at Fred Meyer, and you were to say to him you are a Christian, how would you explain that to him? The Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” What goes on inside your mind when you say you have faith in God?
When the people of this world hear us say we are Christians, some automatically think we are people-haters. But not all of them think this way. Some think we are simply wired differently than they. Faith came to us, but it didn’t come to them. To them, the stories in the Bible are incredible stories, and downright not believable. Noah’s ark and the flood, the parting of the Red Sea, Samson pushing against the pillars of the house – these are not everyday stories they are used to hearing. They may be the kind of stories that make blockbuster Hollywood movies, but they are simply not true. They didn’t happen. The rest of the Bible is therefore not reliable.
Having faith in God is not having blind faith. It is not even having a leap of faith in the way we all understand leap. It is not faith without much evidence or, even worse, lack of evidence. Faith is not, “I know this is not true, but I am going to try very hard to believe it.” One day many years ago, I overheard my aunt say to my mother, “You just have to believe!” My aunt said this to her, I assume, because my aunt sensed she found what it says in the Bible to not be believable, and my aunt wanted to help. Although my aunt was clearly motivated by love, this kind of help, in my opinion, misunderstands the nature of faith in God. Having faith in God is not having blind faith.
On the other hand, having faith in God does not mean there is no longer any doubt. The opposite of having faith is not having doubt. A person can have faith in God, while at the same time, still have lingering questions. One does not have to have all his questions in the Bible answered in order to have faith. If that were the case, there would hardly be any Christians on this planet. A man in Mark 9 brought his son to Jesus to be healed from his possession by a spirit. Jesus said to him, “All things are possible to him who believes.” The man replied, “I do believe; help me with my unbelief.” As we can see, there can still be doubt in the midst of faith. Having faith in God does not mean there are no more questions.
The stories in the Bible are incredible stories. Not only do the people of this world find them to be incredible stories, Christians find them to be equally incredible stories. No one is saying the stories in the Bible are stories that are easy for us to believe. In this sense, the people of this world and we are not that far apart. What sets us apart though is that one has faith that the stories contained in the Bible are factual and true. The other doesn’t.
Having faith in God can come only after a thoughtful examination of the evidence, and deliberation. One who has faith in God has made up in his mind that the things contained in the Bible are true, and he commits himself to live the life that is consistent with his beliefs. Having faith, however, does not mean you have no more questions. It is okay to have questions. You should have questions. As a matter of fact, if you say to me you have no questions, I shall be quite worried. Some questions will not have answers. Others have answers, just not answered to our satisfaction. That’s okay. That is actually what having faith means. One must exercise faith in order to be a Christian. The author of Hebrews wrote, “And without faith, it is impossible to please God.”