What is faith?

I’ve always wondered, what does faith actually look like? It seems like we hear a lot about faith, its importance, and what it can do for us, but what does it really look like? After all, it’s one thing to say I have faith – but it’s completely different to see faith in action or to act in faith. When I look at my life, how do I know if I have faith or not?

Today I finally understood as I read from Mark 2.

“And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’”

Mark 2:4-5

It was faith that drove those friends to desperate action that involved tearing apart someone’s house just to get to Jesus…

So what does faith look like? Faith looks like going to any extreme, taking any risk, doing all you possibly can to place your problems in Jesus’ hands. Then when you have reached the end of your abilities, that’s exactly when He can begin to work. The faith that has brought you there will be rewarded.

The interesting thing is that, in that case, faith involves effort, sometimes discouraging effort that hardly seems worth it, effort done sometimes in the darkness when we can’t see whether our faith will be rewarded or not. But that exactly describes another aspect of faith: Faith and sight do not coexist. Faith and sight cannot coexist.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

2 Corinthians 5:7

Today, will you do something extreme to reach the end of your own ability and do everything you possibly can to place your problems in Jesus’ hands, even if you cannot see beyond the darkness of this moment?