The dynamic of faith is when something is anticipated. As it is written in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see“
Faith is not a reaction to something, it is an anticipation. It is when we can understand the end without necessarily seeing the whole process. When we recognize that He is taking us to an amazing place, even if I don’t understand the way.
Predetermined
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations… Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.”
Jeremiah 1:5 and 7
This is the greatest folly of the gospel! God calls you what you are, even before you become. And we need to trust God even before something happens.
He called Abraham the father of multitudes in Genesis 17, even before that man had a son. When God anoints David as King in 1 Samuel 16, Saul was still in power and David was a shepherd in his father’s house.
This is the dynamic of faith. Just because my future is unknown to me doesn’t mean it’s uncertain.
It probably didn’t make sense to David’s Father that he, the smallest and “weakest” of the brothers, should be chosen. As much as Sara had a health condition that prevented her from having children, her husband had already received the promise of a biological and spiritual family in quantity and quality.
It had no palpable form yet, but it was already real in God’s plan!
Movement by conviction
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you“
Romans 12:3
Trusting is not moving by feeling, as our flesh calls us to do. But it’s moving out of conviction. The fact that I still don’t know what God is doing for me, what the name, the shape, the size… doesn’t mean it’s not real. Miracles are already on the way!
The time in which we are waiting or passing through some desert is not for Him to discover the measure of our faith. It was never about what He needs to see in us, but how much we need to know ourselves and what He has poured into our hearts.
Difficult times are not for God, but they are for our hearts to mature and recognize the faith that exists in us.
Beyond what is seen
Why do I put myself in jeopardy and take my life in my hands? Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless person would dare come before him!
Job 13:14-16
The bible says that Jesus was a carpenter. Every day He worked with wood and nails, knowing that what He would experience most painful in life would involve those materials.
He dealt daily with what would kill Him at some point. But Jesus knew in whose hands His future lay. He once said, “I know where I came from and where I am going.” (John 8:14).
The present has no power to put us in fear, insecurity or uncertainty when we know who is taking care of our future. And that is what our faith must be based on, in the certainty that something is happening beyond our vision.
