Faith and Trust- How Much Do We Live By Them?

Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by admin in God Stuff

Do you have faith in God?
What does that mean to you?
Do you trust God?
Is there a difference between faith and trust?
What does it really mean to have faith?

Before we jump in; let me preface my investigation by sharing a little bit with you.

I have felt a conviction that I have not been fully trusting God. I have felt like I have had tremendous faith in Him and His abilities, but have fallen short of fully, 100% trusting God.

Can anyone relate to that?

We know that He is all knowing; all-powerful; the beginning and the end. We know that every day of our lives have been written in His book and we know that He has specific purposes and plans for each of us and that is why we are here.

So why do I struggle with fully letting go? Fully trusting in the One who promises and has proven time and time again to be forever faithful?

Why do I doubt His abilities at times?

It has been this realization and struggle that has prompted my investigation.

I hope that as you read this, you will ask yourself these questions and in the end that we will have a clearer sense of having faith and trusting in God!

The biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (NIV). Another version states: Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (NLT)

The root word of faith comes from Hebrew and is “emunah”. The Hebrew root aman means firm, something that is supported or secure. Faith is usually perceived as knowing while the Hebrew emunah is a firm action. To have faith in God is not just knowing that God exists or knowing that He will act, but rather it is that the one with emunah (faith) will act with firmness toward God’s will.

So the real meaning of the word “faith”, emunah, is really about us supporting God!

Normally we say, “I have faith in God but according the Hebrew word, it is an action of the one who “supports God”.

Interesting…
Now let’s take a look at the word trust. The dictionary defines trust as follows:
1.   Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
2.   Confident expectation of something; hope.
3.   A person on whom or thing on which one relies: God is my trust.
4.   To believe; to rely on.

When I then looked at the synonyms of trust; guess what was the first one?
You guessed it; FAITH. The synonym to trust is faith.

Trust implies instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something and faith is to act with firmness toward God’s will.
When we trust someone we don’t question him or her. When we have faith we need to fully trust in Christ and act with firmness towards His will.

If you, take a minute and really look at your life; do you find that more often than not, you rely on yourself and have a hopeful faith that God will intervene?
How different would our lives look if we fully trusted God! Would we worry? Would we try to take care of things in our own strength? Would we strive?
Or would we be so Kingdom minded that the worries that we currently struggle with would become very trivial and hardly worth thinking about?

I love the passage in Exodus where Moses says to the Lord: “If You are not going with us, do not move us from here.” Moses had such faith/trust in God that he said he would literally not move unless God was going with Him. He knew that it was only God who could carry him through.

I often find myself praying that prayer: God don’t let me move a step unless You are going with me and you have ordained it.

May we all find ourselves growing in our faith and trust in the Lord. May we rely wholly upon Him for everything.

I pray that as Christ’s followers that we would have the Hebrew faith and that we would all act in firmness together towards supporting God’s will!

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