Not That I Don’t Have Faith

Not That I Don’t Have Faith

Faith is a very common word use in different sects of spiritual believes to inspire one thing, and that is HOPE. The root word from which we get ‘faith, the noun is PISTIS, the verb is PISTUEO. FAITH – PISTIS means belief, firm persuasion, assurance, firm conviction, faithfulness to which an end is assured. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see (NLT). Faith has an aura of light at the end of the tunnel written all over it but with many questions about what happens before the light comes.

Does faith fail? Yes it does! But why?

Faith is one word we misuse obviously because most of us don’t really understand how it works. Note this, you can have faith and still fail, do you know why? Faith has some terms and conditions attached to it. Faith can’t work in a vacuum, it needs some condiments to make it deliver.

Elisha and the Widow’s Oil
A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.”
So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”
And he said to her, “ There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

Reference 2 Kings 4: 1-7 (NKJV)

Faith would only work well, when you fulfill your own part of the bargain, when you make available certain atmospheres for it to flourish. There 3 basic things you need to make your faith work for you;

1. Believe: You have to believe in something of higher significance; believe in God, His Son, His prophets, in possibilities and importantly in yourself. The widow took the words of Elisha and acted on them because she believed. She most likely had many questions but she was able to shut those questions and scepticism up because she believed not only in the God of Elisha but also in Elisha and the possibilities of miracles. Science has revealed that there is a part of the brain known as the “God Spot”, and its main function is to aide our believe system, and that is why everyone believes in something; that part of the brain must be filled. So it now depends on you as a person to determine what would fill that space in your brain. But if faith is what you throw around and rely on, then you will have to fill the God Spot with God.

2. Be ready to follow instructions: For faith to work, instructions have to be followed. There would be certain things that would be required of you depending on what you are exercising faith on, and you will have to do them for your faith to work. For instance, if you are trusting God for a new job you will have to apply or make your availability known to people, if you are trusting God for a child you will have to have a man to copulate with, if you are trusting God for financial empowerment you will have to meet people and so on that’s how it works. Elisha gave the widow instructions and she followed them to the letter, faith would require you to follow instructions, to be obedient and be detailed. Remember, the story of the Fishermen and Jesus, they had tried all night long but they caught nothing. When Jesus came into the picture he asked them to throw in their net one more time; that was an explicit instruction. Yes! It was the same water, in fact the same spot they had tried all night long but then they had to obey that instruction and the result was abundance of fishes. One could have expected Jesus to command fishes to start raining from the sky but No! there are processes to life, you have to do certain things before certain things can happen.

3. You would have to Work your Faith: Faith without Work is dead (FwWD). There are no shortcuts, if you don’t work for anything you can’t earn something and it is the same with God. With faith comes work, they go together. The widow had to do the pouring of the oil, that’s work you know? Have you tried filling a bottle with oil before? Trust me, just one bottle can be exhausting not to talk of filling many pots. Many people will tell you they have faith yet they are not ready to put their best efforts forward; my brothers and my sisters, it doesn’t work that way. Even the woman with the issue of blood had to work her way through the crowd to get to Jesus, before she could exercise her faith. In scheme of things, it is usually Faith Work Faith then Result. Let me point this out, most people’s faith gets disappointed because they hoped faith would work without them working. Remember, there are processes in life; even luck requires some real work of positioning.

Don’t throw the word “faith” around in ignorance and oblivion of what is required of you. Fulfill your own part, be diligent about it, follow instructions and be steadfast in believe. It might take a while before you see the results but trust me it will be worth every second you spent waiting. God can do beyond your expectations, keep trusting, keep hoping, something beautiful is coming your way.