When I talk about faith, I am speaking from a Christian perspective. Even within Christianity, there are different theological traditions and expressions, so I believe it is important to state the foundation from which I am writing.
I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who died for our redemption and rose again for our justification. He is now seated at the right hand of God. I receive and cherish the 66 books of the Bible as the Word of God, and I believe that the Word of God is supreme. Anything I claim to have heard from God must agree with His written Word.
I also believe that the Christian life must be expressed through love. Jesus said that people would know we are His disciples by the love we have for one another. Whatever we say about faith, revelation, spiritual gifts or answered prayer must not lead us away from love, mercy and the character of Christ.
God reveals Himself to us in different ways. We know Him as our loving Father, but He is also the King and the sovereign Head of His Kingdom. His fatherhood helps us understand intimacy, care and belonging, while His kingship reminds us that He possesses authority and that we live under His government. In everything, He remains loving and merciful. That fuller discussion deserves an article of its own, but it provides important context for understanding how I approach faith.
Faith begins with what God has said
Hebrews 11:1 gives us a foundational description of faith. The King James Version says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Another translation describes faith as confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not yet see.
Faith therefore concerns something that has not become physically visible but is already established strongly enough within us to produce confidence. The physical evidence may not yet exist, but faith possesses another kind of evidence: the certainty produced by the Word of God and the revelation of the Holy Spirit.
This distinction matters. Faith is not pretending that a physical condition does not exist. It is not looking at a difficult reality and calling it something else. Faith recognizes the present condition while refusing to treat that condition as the highest or final authority. The believer seeks to understand what God has said and to see the spiritual reality that His Word reveals.
We cannot obtain by faith what we have never seen with the eyes of our understanding. Before something becomes a lived physical reality, it must become clear within us through God’s Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If all we possess is another person’s testimony, a phrase we repeat or an outcome we strongly desire, we may have hope, but we have not necessarily arrived at personal conviction.
Faith requires more than wanting something to happen. It requires knowing what God has said and receiving the understanding needed to walk in it.
Faith is not denial of the present
Suppose someone is sick or falls ill repeatedly while believing that God desires good health for His children. The person may become discouraged and begin to interpret the illness as evidence that prayer has failed, that God is not answering or that the person has no faith.
I do not believe that condemnation helps the person walk by faith. The present illness should not become a reason to panic or conclude that God has abandoned the situation. Instead, it should lead to inquiry: “Father, I need Your answer. I know what I have seen in Your Word, but I do not yet possess the understanding needed to walk fully in its reality. Holy Spirit, teach me.”
This does not mean ignoring physical facts or refusing responsible action. Faith does not require a person to become dishonest about symptoms, circumstances or the help presently needed. It means that while responding responsibly to the physical reality, the believer continues seeking the spiritual understanding that will direct the next step.
The situation becomes part of a conversation with God rather than a verdict against the believer.
Prayer is also an inquiry
We often think of prayer mainly as presenting requests, but prayer is also a place of inquiry. We ask God questions. We search the Scriptures. We remain attentive to the Holy Spirit. We are not merely repeating what we want; we are seeking to understand God’s mind concerning the matter.
This is why a believer should seek a personal answer from God. What the Holy Spirit instructed one person to do in a particular situation may differ from what He instructs another person to do. The principle will agree with Scripture, but the practical direction can be personal.
One person may be instructed to wait. Another may need to apologize, change a habit, speak to someone, take a particular opportunity or stop pursuing an approach that has become unfruitful. God is not limited to one method, and the fact that He led someone in a certain way yesterday does not mean He must follow the same pattern with you tomorrow.
The Holy Spirit leads us in the search for answers. When we encounter a promise or principle in God’s Word, we can pray over it: “Father, open the eyes of my understanding. Help me see what this Word means for my life. Show me how to walk in its reality.”
This is part of what I see in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:16–21. Paul prayed that God would give believers the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him and that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened. He wanted them to know, not merely to have read. There is a difference between encountering words on a page and having the Holy Spirit illuminate those words until they become living conviction.
Faith grows where the written Word and spiritual understanding meet.
Revelation must agree with Scripture
The Holy Spirit does not contradict the Word of God. Any impression, revelation, prophecy or teaching that contradicts Scripture should not be accepted as God’s Word.
This safeguard is essential because spiritual language can be used to justify personal desires, fear and error. Someone may speak confidently and claim that God said something, but confidence is not the test. The test begins with whether the claim agrees with Scripture.
At the same time, we should be careful not to build doctrines from assumptions that Scripture does not explicitly establish. If the Bible does not say something, we should not present our tradition, experience or lack of experience as though it possesses the same authority as the Word of God.
For example, I do not accept the claim that speaking in tongues was only for the earliest believers or that healing ended with the apostles. I see no explicit biblical statement teaching that these things ceased. Instead, I see Jesus speaking about believers laying hands on the sick and speaking with new tongues. I see the disciples instructed to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. In Acts, while Peter was still speaking in the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles without Peter first laying hands on them.
These passages remind me not to limit God’s work to my own experience. If I have not experienced something, humility should lead me to search the Scriptures and seek understanding rather than rewrite the Bible around the boundaries of what I know.
Take God’s Word as God’s Word. Interpret Scripture in the light of Scripture, and do not allow personal convenience to become the final authority.
Faith requires humility
Walking by faith takes humility because God is infinitely creative. Look at the universe, the variety of animals and the uniqueness of human beings. Billions of people possess distinct fingerprints and DNA. Creation itself tells us that God is not restricted to one expression or method.
We therefore cannot turn yesterday’s instruction into a permanent formula. God may answer the same kind of need through a different process. The principle of His Word remains true, but the path through which we experience the answer may differ.
This is why believers must continue asking questions. If you have been trying to win souls through one approach without fruit, ask God what He wants you to do. If you have repeatedly attempted to solve a problem in one way, return to Him and ask whether your method should change. If a previous experience was successful, do not assume that repeating every detail guarantees the same result.
Faith is dependence on God, not confidence in a technique.
Humility also allows us to learn from other believers without trying to copy their lives. A testimony can encourage us by showing that God is faithful, but it should lead us toward God rather than toward imitation without understanding. Ask what principle the testimony reveals, then seek the Holy Spirit’s direction for your own circumstances.
Do not be afraid of the alternative
One of the things I have discovered about faith is that we should not be terrified of the alternative outcome. Fear of the alternative can disguise itself as faith, but it actually makes us anxious, rigid and desperate to control how God must answer.
If you believe God for healing, provision, direction or a particular opportunity, do not behave as though your life will become irredeemable if the visible outcome takes another form. God remains God, and He is able to carry you through circumstances you did not choose.
This does not mean becoming indifferent about the answer or refusing to pray specifically. It means that your confidence rests in God rather than in your ability to force one result. You can desire something deeply while trusting that God sees beyond what you see.
When fear governs us, we may begin to treat every delay as rejection and every difficulty as proof that faith has failed. When trust governs us, we continue seeking, listening and obeying without allowing the present circumstance to destroy our peace.
Faith is not the denial that an alternative exists. It is confidence that no outcome can place us outside God’s knowledge, presence or ability to lead us.
Some questions belong to God
There are situations in which we want an explanation for another person’s life, particularly when we lose someone through illness, an accident or another tragedy. The pain can be greater when the person was young and the loss feels contrary to everything we expected.
It is natural to want answers, but some questions may be beyond our present responsibility and understanding. God may reveal something, or He may not give the explanation we seek. We should be careful about constructing confident spiritual explanations for another person’s life when God has not spoken to us about it.
What we can seek is the grace and truth required for our own journey. We can ask the Holy Spirit to comfort us, sustain us and show us how to continue. Jesus called the Holy Spirit our Comforter. His presence can give peace that surpasses human understanding, even when every intellectual question has not been resolved.
The peace of God does not always arrive because we finally know why everything happened. Sometimes it arrives because we know the One who remains with us when we do not know.
Faith allows unanswered questions to exist without allowing them to separate us from God.
God’s timing is not negligence
I believe that God answers prayer and does not neglect His children. His timing is perfect, even when it differs from ours. This is one of the difficult parts of faith because we live inside time and naturally measure answers by how quickly they appear.
Waiting does not mean we stop engaging with God. We continue praying, searching the Word, asking questions and doing what He has already instructed us to do. We remain attentive because the answer may require action, preparation or a change in our understanding.
We should also be willing to examine whether we have turned delay into a doctrine. Sometimes God has already placed an instruction before us, but we continue asking for another answer because the instruction is inconvenient. Faith does not consist only of waiting for God to move. It includes obeying what He has already made clear.
God’s timing is perfect, but our response must still be faithful.
Faith produces action
Faith is not complete as an internal feeling. Once the Holy Spirit gives understanding, the believer must act on it. We use our minds to understand the instruction, consider how to apply it and then put it into practice.
If the direction is to forgive, faith forgives. If the direction is to give, faith gives. If the direction is to wait, faith refuses to manufacture movement merely to escape discomfort. If the direction is to speak, faith speaks. If the direction is to change an approach, faith does not protect the old method through pride.
This is where faith becomes visible. We do not act because the physical evidence has already made obedience comfortable. We act because the Word of God has become more authoritative to us than the fear created by what we presently see.
The action itself does not manipulate God. It is our response to what He has revealed.
Walking by faith means walking with the Holy Spirit
Walking by faith is not walking by physical senses alone. We still use our minds, observe reality and make responsible decisions, but we do not allow physical evidence to become the only source from which we receive direction.
We walk with the Holy Spirit. We ask questions. We search the Scriptures. We pray for wisdom and revelation. We test what we believe we have heard against the written Word. We remain humble enough to receive an instruction that differs from the method we expected, and then we obey.
Faith is therefore not a formula for acquiring whatever we desire. It is a life of fellowship with God in which His Word shapes our hopes, His Spirit enlightens our understanding and His direction governs our actions.
Begin with the Word. Take the matter to God in prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your understanding and show you how to walk in the truth you have found. Refuse condemnation while you are still learning, and do not confuse the absence of immediate physical evidence with the absence of God’s work.
Keep listening. Keep asking. Keep obeying. Faith works as we consistently walk with the Holy Spirit according to the Word of God.
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