Wielding Faith And Fighting Fear预览

How Faith Grows

I think the best description of the word faith is “trust.” Trust is the quiet assurance that comes from knowing that a person or thing will do what you expect. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:3, “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more.” How does faith grow? Trust, like faith, grows only with time and experience. We have to spend time with the objects of our trust in order to learn how they operate and behave.

Trust in people comes from interacting with them and discovering what we can expect from them. Because I spend so much time with my wife, when I pull into my driveway, I usually know what to expect. It’s likely that you can attest to this principle with those in your own life—the more time you spend with members of your family, or with your friends, the more accurately you understand their reliability, their motivations, and their makeup.

The same is true with God. The more time I invest in His presence, the easier it is for me to know what to expect. Sometimes we do not believe as we should, not because God is so hard to trust, but because we have invested so little time building our trust in Him. God, an open heart and time spent with Him equals much more faith.

What are several ways you can open your heart and spend time with God in order to grow your faith?