Today While at Church the Pastor on a few occasions said, we just need to have faith, and we just need to believe. I have heard these remarks many times before, but it struck me differently today. How many times have you heard people say when going through a difficult time “Just have faith”? I would guess probably many times, but what exactly does that mean and is it that easy to obtain such a faith that it can bring you out of the lowest of lows and during moments of seemingly unceasing pain.
I think we throw around these phrases a little to glibly. I have gone through times when it feels like God isn’t there at all, and if He is He sure isn’t listening. Times of prayer that go on seemingly unanswered and times when life doesn’t make much sense. I also have friends that have hit rock bottom and don’t know where to turn to next to get relief from the hardships of life. I know I don’t want to hear, and they probably don’t want to hear “Just have faith” and things will get better.
The word “Just” makes it seem like it is something easy to obtain. It’s like telling someone who wants to climb Mt Everest, Just go climb it. This dismisses the amount of training involved, the expenses to do it, the time off to do it and having a team of experts to help you along the way. I think faith is similar to this. It takes time to understand who and what you are putting your faith in. It takes time to learn that God is faithful to us and that we can trust Him. But this takes time like in any relationship. It takes time to build trust before you put your faith in that person. So too in putting faith and trust in God in order to believe in Him and in His word.
Let us not then loosely say” just have faith”, and “just believe”. Let’s replace it with learn how to trust in God. Spend time in the bible to learn of His character and how others who did put their faith in Him even during the hardest of times that God was faithful to them and he too will be faithful to you. It is hard to have faith in the unseen, So I tell you not to just have faith, rather fight for it, seek it, pray for it.
Pieces of Truth 
In any relationship, trust is learned and developed. In our relationship with God it is no different. To know with my head that God is infinitely reliable is different than experiencing it and living it out.
Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you for your encouragement Mark
i agree, i went through so much in the past year, and people would say this to me i guess because they didn’t know what else to say, and i would think to myself it is easy for you to say that when everything is going right in your life. if people don’t have anything else to say, just give a hug or some other small gesture to let them know that you care. instead of saying just have faith, it is more appropriate to say, stay focused because God May Be Taking you out of your comfort zone so that you can learn to rely on Him when you have nothing left, and that was something i learned from experience.
Yalandarose, thank you for your well thought out words and your honesty and insight into this. Speaking from a man’s prospective, we always want to fix peoples problems. But you bring up a great point, instead of trying to resolve someones difficulties with a just have faith comment let them know you love them and will walk beside them in their hard times
Agreed, if we feel a platitude about to come out of our mouth, stuff it with whatever is available or you will end up with your foot in your mouth. I can speak from experience that shoe leather is not very tasty.
Thank-you for this reminder. I really needed to hear/read these words this week.
Hi Sarah, thanks for checking out the post. I see you are a big Canucks fan, are you from Vancouver? Im in Pennsylvania and have a brother who lives in Squamish.
yes I’m from Vancouver & very much so a big Canucks fan:)! & thanks again for your latest post, I look forward to the next one!