Building Bold Faith

“Pray prayers big enough that they require God to show up.” This was a challenge I heard years ago, which simultaneously rattled me and brought a hint of thrill and intrigue. It also ended up ruining my life in the best possible way.

I’m a big fan of pursuing the impossible with the Lord, but that hasn’t always been the case. I’d love to say that bold faith has come effortlessly for me throughout my life, but the truth is, faith for big things is something I had to learn over time. The journey has not been without cost, nor without significant grappling and wrestling, but the process brought me into a full transformative experience that shored up my doubts in God’s nature and character and re-set my expectations for what is possible. If you’re anything like me and faith has not come easily, or you simply want more, allow me to offer an infusion of hope... and maybe ruin your life a little bit, too.

How do we get bold faith?

Faith in the context of Christianity is not simply the holding of a particular set of tenets. Nor is it an ambiguous belief in something abstract or a vague hope that everything is going to somehow turn out alright. Having faith as a Christian is having trust in a person, the person of Jesus. Ultimately, if we strip it down to the basics, faith means we’ve chosen to trust that God is who He says He is and He’ll do what He says He’ll do.

Because of this, faith and trust are inextricable from one another. This may be disheartening to some, if (like me) trust doesn’t come easily, but the silver lining is that this means faith is something we can grow in. While it certainly is a gift to be received from the Lord, faith is also something that exists in degrees and can increase. And it’s something we can actively engage in to build and develop.

Before this starts to sound like an arduous task, let me also clarify: faith is not something we can or should carry the pressure to develop alone. This is not a mandate to “just try harder.” Faith does not exist in a vacuum – there’s more than one party involved here: us and the Lord. Due to the role of trust in this, the growth of our faith requires engagement from both us and God. In other words, building trust takes place in the context of relationship. And trust in relationships comes through process.

In this case, that process looks like building a history with the Lord.

I love the illustration of this process we have from Abraham, our “father in faith”:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise; for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and maker is God.

By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal age and Sarah herself was sterile; for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, of whom it was said, ‘through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.’ He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead.”

(Hebrews 11:8-11, 17-19)

I’ve heard it said that faith is spelled R-I-S-K. That has been true of my journey, and we see it here with Abraham as well – making intentional choices that do not carry an inherent guarantee of success, in response the Lord’s invitation and promise.

Whenever we exercise faith – whenever we move forward believing the Lord and taking Him at His word – we create the opportunity for Him to show up and prove Himself faithful.

Abraham acted “by faith” over and over when the Lord called him, and over and over, the Lord came through on His promises.

The repetition of this process builds a track record with the Lord that creates trust. It brings us to the point where we can take greater risks, because we’ve learned that “the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.”

This experience expands our faith. It positions us to believe for increasingly greater things – outrageous things. It’s the process by which we come to believe that nothing is impossible.

“He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead.”

Abraham had no biblical precedent to believe that supernatural resurrection was an option at this moment of history. It was not something Abraham had witnessed before or that God had performed in the past. To him, this prospect should not have even been on the radar of possibilities for how his story might end. And yet, when presented with the invitation to do something extraordinarily risky, it was natural and plausible for Abraham to not just dream but to REASON his way to an impossibility. The history he built with the Lord forged a faith so deep that it brought him to the natural conclusion: if God came through on His promises before, He’ll find a way to come through again, and absolutely nothing will stop Him – not even death. Abraham believed in the impossible simply because he had learned to believe in the Lord's trustworthiness.

Bold faith grows over time and within relationship. It’s a dance. An invitation - a leap - a catch ... a new invitation - another leap - another catch. God knows the process, He knows the dance, and He delights in doing it with us. He loves to prove Himself faithful, again and again. Whether it's praying big prayers, pursuing a calling, choosing to remain hopeful, stepping into the unknown, or simply trying something new, if the Lord has invited us into taking a risk, the only way we learn to trust Him is to take that risk and give Him the chance to come through.

He invites, we leap, He catches. Again and again. And our faith grows each time.

There’s a reason Peter had the inclination to attempt walking on water (Mt 14:22-33). Because after all he’d experienced in his journey with Jesus, it became fully plausible to him that when Jesus was involved, defying the laws of physics was in the realm of possibilities. This is the degree of faith that is available to us as well – one in which the impossible seems entirely reasonable.

What is the Lord inviting you to have faith for today? How is He inviting you to step into the dance?