The benefits of faith

I trust in your unfailing love (Psalm 13:5).

We’ve all experienced betrayal. We shared something personal, only to have that secret become a topic of gossip. We’ve all been let down. We depended on someone who lost track of time, didn’t bring the right stuff, or simply forgot that they had made a promise to us. And we’ve all been lied to. We were taken advantage of, then discarded as no longer necessary.

Because we’ve been repeatedly hurt these ways, it’s hard to muster up trust in anyone—even God. Which is manifestly unfair, because God has never betrayed us, never broken a promise, never told a lie. God is faithful. God can be trusted. Unlike us, He is perfect; the sinful nature that makes us unfaithful is completely foreign to Him.

To have faith is to be confident in God’s love, power, and wisdom. Faith trusts God to deal with us in love, even though we make Him angry with our bad behavior. Faith has confidence in God’s almighty power, power that can overcome the biggest of problems. Faith finds security in God’s wisdom, trusting that when we are lost in confusion, God knows what is for the best.

To have faith is to reject worry over the uncontrollable. You don’t run the stock market. You can’t stop world leaders from declaring war. You have no power over earthquakes or tornadoes. Your friends and family will make bad decisions that are beyond your control. Worrying about such things is pointless; your time is better spent in praying to the Lord and trusting Him to take care of things.

To have faith is to give up the illusion of self-reliance. How many times have you sworn you were going to give up smoking, lose weight, or start exercising? How many New Year’s resolutions have you broken? How many times have you kicked yourself for disappointing the people who love you and depend on you? We are weak and corrupt. Left to our own devices, we only make a mess of things. We need God because He’s the only one who can forgive us and rescue us from the consequences of our bad decisions. Faith teaches us to rely on Him rather than ourselves. Faith in God brings peace.