Without faith it is impossible to please God. And we all want to please God, so is my faith too small? The short answer is, yes!

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I have long since come to terms with the fact that my faith is too small. And guess what, I don’t think it condemns me anymore. Because my righteousness is attributed to me even if my faith is but a mustard seed.

I am not saying this as an excuse to not grow my faith. My faith is constantly being challenged and I think it is greater now than it was last year. But man, honestly, I don’t for a minute think that my faith is today, all that God desires it to be.

The irony of my faith

And accepting that it is small is step one in opening yourself for growth. Step two, is resting in the provision Christ has already made in spite of my small faith. The irony of faith is that the more I condemn myself for my small faith, the smaller my faith shrinks. And the more I rest in what Christ has already done, the more my faith grows.

That is why I have no problem saying that the reason my prayer was not answered may well be because my faith was too small. Maybe tomorrow my faith will expand enough to see my prayer answered. My faith works when I realize that God is faithful when I am not. And it is only that hope that allows me to grow in faith, hope, and righteousness.

Faith is always effective

It used to bother me when Christians talked about how we must not have enough faith because our reality wasn’t what we believed for yet. And it made me feel condemned for my small faith. But these days a lot of that guilt is washed away by my understanding of faith. I have realized that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hoped for, and not seen. Having your desired life, doesn’t mean you have faith. Neither does NOT having your desired life mean you don’t have faith. Faith is what determines your response to your situation, not the result of your situation. Now obviously, the likelihood of you living your dream life is much greater if you have always acted and made decisions that were rooted in faith.

The reality of this world’s brokenness

But even if you have always made every decision and action based on deeply rooted faith, it is still a broken world we live in. Karma is not real. Of course, more good things will happen to people who do good. More bad things will happen to people who do bad. It is called harvesting the fruits of what you have sown. But bad things do happen to righteous people.

That is a reality of life. And if you can’t accept that, your faith will always be crippled too. Can God miraculously change your situation? Yes! And He often does things like that. And if we as Christians had more faith, He would do it still more often. But faith isn’t the answered prayer, faith is that you keep on praying when it doesn’t happen right away.

My faith leaves plenty of room for growth

I will readily admit my faith needs plenty of growth. I will also readily admit that a large part of the reason my life isn’t yet the dream life, is because I have made too many fear based decisions instead of faith based decisions. But if I let that condemn me as being displeasing to God, it is a sure sign that my faith will continue to remain small.

For faith to grow, I must believe more in God’s goodness and love. Faith works by love. Faith is about relationship. And it is holding on to the father heart of God, that my faith expands. Focusing on the size of my faith, shrinks it. Focusing on the love of my Father, expands it. It is by coming to the point of such submission to Him, that I can call Him, Abba Father, that faith becomes hope, and hope drives action.