Faith Holds the Place

 

The most common definition of faith is quoted from Hebrews 11. Verse one defines faith in this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Faith is real, it is a substance! I think of it like this; faith is what you have while you wait for what you are having faith for. We hope for things, pray for things and wait for them to be realized. When we are still hoping and waiting, faith is what we have. We believe that the answer is coming. That believing, is faith. Faith holds the place. Once the answer comes, faith is no longer needed.

My husband and I dealt with unexplained infertility for 5 years before we got pregnant with our first son. We had waited several years after we got married to start trying to get pregnant, then when we wanted to have a baby, we couldn’t! Without getting into the details of that difficult and complex time, I’ll just use it as an example of faith. We both believed that we had a promise from God that He would heal me and that we would have our own biological children. We had faith that God could and would answer our prayers and great desire to have kids. But for years, there was lots of bad news, and no pregnancy. We had faith, but at times it felt thin and weak. It wasn’t an easy road, and at times I felt like my faith might not survive! Eventually, and with some medical intervention, we did get pregnant. We didn’t need faith that I would get pregnant anymore, because now I was!

For those 5 years of infertility, we only had faith and a sense of promise. Our son felt like a miracle, but my body was also healed in the process. After his birth, all the hormonal and medical issues that were making it difficult/impossible for me to get pregnant were no longer present. I was healed! Faith held the space from the time we believed we would have a baby until we had one!  And then we had 3 more!

I have numerous other examples of things I have had faith for and then experienced them coming to pass. We all do! We love these testimonies of how our faith was rewarded with the promise “coming true”.

But we all have stories of disappointment too; times when what we were believing would happen did not. I have them: people I prayed for in faith that they would be healed and instead they died, women I prayed would have my same testimony and instead they remain childless, and countless other examples of “unanswered prayers”. What do we say in these instances? Was faith not rewarded? Was it not enough faith? The questions are endless and the answers elusive. I will not even begin to try to answer them.

Yet I do still think it remains true; faith holds the place. Faith remains; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”.  Our faith is disappointed when our prayers go unanswered, or they are not answered in the way we wanted them to be. But faith still holds the place. If we still believe in God and have our faith in Him, then faith is filling the space between what we believe for and what we experience.

Faith is our connection to God. Faith fills the space between us and Him; between our earthly experience and His heavenly reality. When prayers are answered, it can feel that a bit of heaven invades earth and we are rewarded. The converse is true with the opposing emotion; our prayers are not answered and we feel the disappointment of our earthly reality being unchanged by the power of heaven.

Sometimes we forget that faith is the connection, the substance that exists between us and our God. We begin to mix it up with the request. If I have faith that God will provide for a financial need that I have, my faith is in God, not the money I need. I am believing that God will provide it in one way or another. I have testimonies of people giving me the amount of money I needed. But I also have testimonies of times where I felt God directing me to go without something or change a decision in order to have the money for the need. In those times I felt that God provided by giving me wisdom and grace to make those choices that resulted in the need being provided for. My faith is in God; His ability and willingness to provide. Once the need is provided for, I no longer need faith for that specific need.

I think sometimes we wait and see how something plays out to decide if we have faith for it or not. But faith is not the thing that we are waiting for! Faith is the substance that you hold while you wait. Faith occupies that time and space between the prayer and the fulfillment of it.

When my husband and I were praying and believing for a baby, our faith was in God and His power to heal my body and bless us with a baby. Our faith wasn’t in the baby! Nor was it in our ability to get pregnant.  Our faith was in God. We believed that He had the ability to heal me and cause us to get pregnant. We believed that He wanted us to conceive. We believed that He would direct us and guide us in the choices to make and how to respond. We believed that He was in control; not ourselves or even the doctors advising us.

When my prayers and faith have gone unanswered, my faith still connects me to God. My faith is not determined by the outcome. I know this, and yet sometimes I still find myself waiting and evaluating my faith based on the outcome.  I ask questions like: “Do I have enough faith?” “Will my faith be rewarded?” Or I look back at the times where I was disappointed by my faith and I wonder what went wrong. I ask “Did I hear God wrong?” “Did I pray the wrong way?” “Did I not have enough faith?” But faith is not the outcome. Faith is the process; it is the connection point between us and God. Faith holds the place; it fills the space.

Even in the tragic, most painful places where I look back and my prayers for healing were not answered, but instead the person died, I still see faith. I didn’t get the reward of faith I was hoping and believing for, but I am not empty handed! Faith still holds the place. Faith still connects me to God. I don’t like the outcome, but I am still convinced that He had and still has the power to heal.

Faith is the substance of what I hope for and the certainty of what I cannot see. Whether my prayers are answered or not, faith is still that connection between me and God. Faith is what I cling to when my prayers are not answered. Faith is what I rejoice in when my prayers are answered. And whether my prayers are answered or not, my faith increases. The joy of faith being rewarded by answered prayers causes an increase of faith that is delightful. But in times of disappointment, faith is a life-line to the peace and comfort that is only found in God. That connection and the process of being loved and comforted in the midst of loss and disappointment increases faith as well.

The true reward of faith is God Himself and our connection with Him! We do not see God and yet we believe in Him. That belief, that substance that connects us to Him, is faith.