“Trust is not ‘blind faith’. Trust comes over time, and is built up as people show that they can be relied on. And so, if we trust someone, we have some kind of evidence that they can be relied on. It’s no different with God. God has shown throughout history that He can be relied on, and that He always has our best interests at heart. He never lies, and He never breaks promises. When He asks us to trust Him, it’s based on His unfailing record of perfect love and keeping promises.” – Rupert Lineage
Faith is not something that comes easy for me. I naturally question everything, even myself, so it is natural for me to question God too, even now that I follow God. I suppose I’m a bit of a Job, or at least a Thomas in that respect.
My mother, when she gets to reminiscing, often tells the story that one of my favourite words as a child was “why?” and how I wore her out with it. So it may not surprise you then to hear I have little patience for “blind” faith. For faith that never asks “why?” I can be as contemptuous of blind faith as a hardened atheist. That’s something I have to watch, I know. Contempt is not a virtue. Nevertheless I confess this so that you know where I’m coming from. Faith is something that’s come upon me unnaturally. Faith has come through finding God trustworthy even when I didn’t expect it.
You know what though? It means that God never ceases to surprise me, never ceases to limitlessly exceed my limited expectations. Take the healing I witnessed a few years back. On one level, of course I know God heals. Nevertheless, when he healed the gangrenous and soon-to-be-amputated hand of an addict friend of mine, when another friend and I prayed over it, it felt surreal. I felt like Thomas exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” or “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief!” Nevertheless, my experience that God can be expected to surprise me gives rise to an unshakable faith. He will keep surprising me, because he has reliably proven himself so surprising so far!
But enough about me, what’s your experience of faith? Has faith ever seemed illusive? Do you find faith compelling? Has your ability to entrust yourself to the transcendent, to risk yourself to the transcendent, grown through experience? Do you see strength in a vulnerable faith?
Curious Christian 
I think that faith results from asking questions, not from disallowing questioning which allows people to probe in an honest effort to understand.
Doubt coupled with honest questioning toward resolution of “questions” often leads to faith.
Trust is a response to someone’s faithfulness towards the other relationally.
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It took a crisis of the faith leading Luther to doubt,
struggle and question the accepted status quo thinking of religious believes and practices to do the churches teachings about sin, faith and salvation.
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I found it a very freeing experience to realise that doubt was valid, that it was not always the sin I had been conditioned to believe it was.
There is actually some wisdom and protection when doubt is entertained in a context of setting healthy boundaries whilst respecting others with divergent opinions.
Lately, I have been convicted about the role of “contempt” in my life and dealings with people.
I must re-read Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. He explores such things as anger, contempt etc.
“When we trace wrongdoing back to its roots in the human heart, we find that in the overwhelming number of cases it involves some form of anger. Close beside anger you will find its twin brother, contempt. Jesus’ understanding of them and their role in life becomes the basis of his strategy for establishing kingdom goodness. It is the elimination of anger and contempt that he presents as the first and fundamental step toward the rightness of the kingdom heart.”
(DC, p. 147)
I think that dealing with these matters is an important part of developing integrity and congruity in the faith-life.
Walking with God (emunah – Hebrew for faithfulness) has the effect of showing us where we lack faith, and when we’re in such good company, it’s possible for God’s goodness to embrace our “badness” and transform it for our benefit and the benefit of those around us.
That’s my faith statement for the day! 🙂
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