Confidence and Assurance

“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT)

Many Christians have adopted a Disneyesque view of faith: if you profess faith in God, attend church, pray enough, and try not to sin--then, all your dreams will eventually come true and you will live happily ever after, if not on earth, then in heaven.

Faith is an assurance in a God that we cannot see, contain, or measure. By attempting to prove, categorize, quantify, and qualify it, we merely belittle faith. By straining to fit our beliefs about God into our current understanding of the universe, we try to squeeze our faith into a box. By trying to explain our faith within the context of human language, we limit it even further.

Faith allows us to access that which is beyond our sensory perceptions. Somewhere within us, we each have the capacity to sense God. Some of us have honed this ability, while others have let this instinct atrophy.  Faith enables us to perceive the Spirit all around us, to develop an assurance of God’s goodness, a confidence in His power, and a deep trust in His unconditional love.