Faith Is The Evidence

Faith Is the Evidence

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1

IF YOU’VE SPENT MUCH TIME PRAYING for God to do something—to provide for a need, heal an illness, overcome a problem, intervene in a relationship—you may have noticed a familiar dynamic. We tend to ask for his help and then watch very closely for evidence that he is responding. If we see some of the change we hoped for, we assume the answer was yes. If we don’t, we eventually resign ourselves to his “no.” We let our observations dictate our faith.

That’s not how faith is meant to work. Sometimes God spends an extraordinarily long time working out his purposes. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah experienced excruciating gaps between promise and fulfillment. And like them, in those gaps, our minds and hearts go on winding journeys of belief and doubt, certainty and confusion, questions and more questions. There’s a purpose in that process, though we hardly recognize it at times. It strips us of our tendency to look for evidence that God is answering our prayers or working out his plans. We are being anchored instead in his faithfulness. We are learning to walk by faith.

Don’t tamper with that process by constantly examining your surroundings for proof that God is at work. Enjoy the evidence when you see it, but understand that it is not a sign of what God will ultimately do every time. Faith doesn’t look for verification. Faith is the verification. It’s the substance of things hoped for, the reality of the eternal, the evidence of things we have not yet seen. If faith is evidence of the unseen, then straining to see undermines it. Faith is comfortable standing alone.

Faith is also patient. It does not waver with the ups and downs of situations. Our compulsion to look for evidence along the way will send our moods soaring or plummeting with every shift in circumstances. Mature faith waits confidently, regardless of what our natural eyes see. When the time is right, in God’s perfect planning, we’ll see what we’ve believed.

Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, and looks to that alone; laughs at all impossibilities and cries, “It shall be done!”