A central component in the life of a believer of Christ is that of faith. Many without a moment’s notice will drop Hebrews 11:1 as the standard definition of their faith. Everyone talks about the need to exercise or operate one’s faith, but the when the rubber hits the road the true measure of faith comes into play.

Trouble and hard times have a way of registering the authenticity of your faith. It leads one to determine whether faith is a tangible force for change or an interpretive tool for diagnosing a person’s troubles. For some faith is disguised as slick words used to make others think you are some type of faith epigone of Job. Faith is used as a key code to material wealth, spiritual medicine for instant healing and physical inertia that make one beautiful to all, but only for those who “truly believe”-whatever that means.

The bottom line is that faith is lied about from the pulpit and glamorized by many of commodified pastors. They proclaim that if you have faith, God will always move on your behalf. Their proclamation is galvanized by the fact that many of them have testimonies and products of their faith to back it up-planes, houses, cars, large bank accounts. Well, I am not sure if that is faith as much as good marketing.

Faith will place you are the very edge of insanity when it is really appropriated in life’s situation. It will have you wondering if there is a God due to the circumstances beyond your control. Faith is really unexplainable, because in the end you are subject to will of God circumventing the process at any time.  So the faith is more representative of how you view God then in what he can do for you. Does God loom large in your life or is he just as Dr. Robert Smith would say “ecclesiastical bellhop.”

The intentionality of faith is directed toward God and not toward our/my personal outcome. It is not whether God can trust me it is simply whether I trust God. Have I really embraced the ethos of Romans 8:28? It is not will God or can God; it is how does his moving on my behalf benefit his kingdom? Does my need magnify the essence of what he is trying to accomplish in the world?

I guess we will see…just my thoughts