What's your faith worth?

Faith that does nothing is worth nothing. (James 2:20 ERV)

One of my Bible College professors always used to say, "Sometimes you must put feet to your faith before you will see the evidence of what you are seeking." He was reminding us that faith is more than a "thing" - it involves action. It requires us to believe, then to act upon our belief. Faith becomes most evident in the action we launch based upon that belief - either it is faith in God, or it become evident our trust is based in something we can do or accomplish. Our professor wasn't telling us to "force" God's hand, but rather to trust him to guide us 'into' what would ultimately become the fulfillment of our faith. 

When we begin to trust God even the tiniest bit in an area where we have struggled for a while to really make any progress toward a goal we might have, it isn't that we just say we have faith, we take steps to show we are willing to move in that direction. For example, if we have been struggling to lose weight and know very well what steps we need to take, but we haven't believed it possible, we are likely to have the "want to", but we lack the wherewithal to actually do it. Or do we? Most of the time, we have all the "truth" we need to accomplish what it is we need to do, but we lack the "umph" to put truth into action within our lives.

This is where trust becomes important. We may not have all the "want to" we really need, but when we take the first step toward the goal, God meets that tiny bit of faith with an even bigger amount of faith. He bolsters our faith and helps us take the next step. Little by little, we find that tiny seed of faith can blossom into a huge tree of faith when tiny steps of faith are bolstered with great big infusions of God's faith! We may not see the end yet, but as we begin to take steps of obedience into faith, we begin to see God meet us there and walk alongside us in whatever direction that faith is taking us.

Faith isn't meant to be a mental thing, although I think many of us make it "mental" and devoid of action. Faith isn't meant to be totally on our part, although many of us might actually believe all the faith part rests in what we can manage to "muster up" within ourselves. Faith is based on what we believe, so getting that foundation right is very important. Faith is a seed of hope - that seed grows as we water it and then God nurtures it to full growth. Just sayin!