Where Does Faith Come from?

A little over 2 years ago, I was contemplating this exact question. I had spent many years exploring faith. I was determined to get to the bottom of it. Notice how I placed myself as the main person in figuring it out. Take note, because it will make sense, as I unpack my story.

A little background. My journey began in a different way than most people. I initially began about 24 years earlier on a different path. I was determined to prove the Bible was wrong or at least flawed enough, so that I could write it off as not true.

Why? Well, then I could let myself off the hook, do whatever I felt was okay, make up my own rules and beliefs, and take no accountability to anything but me, myself and I. Does this sound selfish and prideful?

Answer: It was!

I spent my first 10 years reading the Bible looking for the cracks in the logic, the false people, places or errors. I read and I read. You would think this is where the story ended. A magical answer that would sound so perfect right here is if I was to say, “And all of a sudden, I understood and became a believer!” That is not true. I read the Bible all the way through and got just about zero from it. No, I did not find anything false or wrong in it per se, but I also gained nothing from it. Let me note one thing that was consistent in that 10 years. My intent.

Remember, I was intending on proving the Bible was false, errored, wrong… Why? Well, because if I could prove that, I was free of any accountability to a God and His Word.

That did not happen. Nothing happened. So, I began a new approach. I started hanging out with Christians. I attended some churches and began attending a Bible study with guys that were professing Christians and knew way more than me.

I began reading the Bible again. I read the passages for Bible study and we discussed them at length. I was in fact, trying to understand the Bible by association. See, if I was hanging out with Christians, doing Bible studies with them, I thought maybe I might finally get it by osmosis. It would rub off on me, whatever it was…

Over 10 years doing that and the results were in… nothing again. There must not be a God or faith because I have not received anything for all my efforts.

You would think I would have gave up. Just went on, but I had this void deep down inside of me. It felt like a God size hole in my chest. I thought about all the things I had accomplished in life. All the things I tried filling the emptiness of this void with. Money, relationships, travel, homes, knowledge, experiences, and the list goes on… Nothing fills a God size hole, except, well…God.

There was another issue too. I was an unbeliever at heart.

I began listening to podcasts, reading my Bible, praying, although I really didn’t know how to pray or to who I should pray. I remember coming across a podcast where I heard one sentence, one challenge and I decided to give it a try.

The podcast host was a younger girl who had a huge amount of faith only several months after being saved. I listened, because this puzzled me. Here I was 20 plus years into trying to understand and believe, yet she was literally changed overnight. I listened because I did not believe someone could radically change basically overnight. I listened for clues. Was she truthful? Was this change authentic? It had me stumped.

While listening to hundreds of her episodes, I could see she was on fire for Jesus. How come I wasn’t? How did she grow her faith? How did her faith grow so quickly? While dissecting each episode, I came across one sentence that I heard her say. She said, “Try starting out with a mustard seed of faith.”

I thought about this endlessly. Maybe I was approaching this all wrong. I reflected on my journey. I was always looking for evidence of God, the reasons to believe. I read and studied and searched tirelessly for years for proof or evidence to convince myself, but never did I blindly step out in faith. Why? Because that was foolish and made zero sense to me as a logical intelligent person. I have a mind for science. If I can’t prove it to be true, it was false! End of story.

Then I thought I might try quieting my mind, my thoughts, my analytical brain enough to somehow produce my own faith. My head told me this was foolish. I still tried to shut it off and act as if I had faith. I started praying to God about this design flaw I felt I had. I was unable to be like others and simply believe, to have faith in something that I could not prove. Weeks went by, nothing still. I just kept praying and asking for help. I gave up. I was never going to figure this out. I would never fill the God size hole in my chest.

Then, something happened. Looking back, I see now it was when I surrendered, gave up control trying to make it happen myself. This is when I began to notice a change. I noticed a presence of faith. I was quietly excited but also confused and scared. I felt like I had been given a small measure of faith. I remember saying to myself, “I feel like I have about 4 to 5 percent faith.” This was a big change from the zero percent I had always experienced. My life started to feel different immediately. And because I always tried to be in control of my life, having God step in was crazy and scary at the same time.

My prayers changed. I began asking God to please take it easy on me and don’t change me too much too soon. I was feeling overwhelmed even with this small dose of faith, I now had. God knew me better than I know myself and met me where I was and unfolded my walk with Him perfectly. He has always given me exactly what I needed without fail. Looking back, I should have trusted fully sooner, but you don’t know until you know. Over the next year, God helped me understand and was always faithful as I was learning and growing. I have 100% faith in Christ, and I would never turn back from this peace and the wonderful life I now have in Christ.

Here are some of the lessons God has taught me over the past few years. First and foremost, faith is not from yourself, it is a gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8,9) God sends faith as a gift out of His grace for us to those He has chosen to save. (This is great news! If you have any faith in God, it is from Him and you are already chosen! Will you respond and become saved? ) - John 15:16

Secondly, faith comes from hearing the message of salvation through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17) Faith is built upon the gospel message. (1 Corinthians 15:1) What this is saying, is in order for you to truly believe you must have heard the good news (gospel message), because how can you believe in something if you have never heard about it?

Thirdly, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1) This would have saved me decades of time if I understood that I would never get enough evidence to believe, ever! Faith is believing even though everything in your rational logical mind says differently. He wants you to come to Him in faith, not because of evidence or proof. The irony is, after you begin believing without evidence, the evidence is poured out in full buckets from God and He reveals so many things you have been searching for. Man, do I have hundreds of examples!

Faith is from God. Salvation is not a reward of the righteous, but a gift to the guilty. We are all sinners by nature, so we are all guilty of sin. (Romans 3:23) We must hear the gospel message, believe and repent of our sins, trusting Jesus for forgiveness of those sins. Even an unbeliever is a sinner. We all need His free gift.

All physical life is temporary, but those who trust in Jesus and choose to be saved will live on in heaven for eternity. If not, the Bible clearly says you will be cast out into darkness (hell) and be tormented for eternity. (Rev 21:8) I would not want that for anyone.