SBS: Absolute Faith

Question of the week, brought to us by the esteemed Mr. J.P. Collins:

"Is it possible for us to have absolute faith? What can, or better yet should, we do to help us come as close as humanly possible to absolute faith? "


Most people would think of absolute faith as being the kind of faith that moves mountains, heals the sick, raises the dead, etc. And they're right-absolute faith is believing in the power of God to accomplish the impossible. I believe that as followers of Christ we are all capable of this tremendous faith, yet miracles like the ones I just mentioned are rarely, if ever, seen in our lifetime. Why? Because absolute faith must first be prefaced with absolute surrender.

Faith isn't just believing that God can move mountains or make a blind man see- it's also believing that He is fully in control of our lives, and trusting Him completely with them. If we won't fully sacrifice ourselves to His control, how can we have absolute faith in Him? Too many of us, myself included, don't relinquish every aspect of lives to Him-we hold things back, either to hide them or 'take care of them' by ourselves. We're afraid of what will happen when we take matters out of our own hands and give them to God. One of my favorite quotes by CS Lewis sums up our fear of surrender pretty well-“We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." Absolute surrender is scary! It means we are completely and blindly trusting God with our daily lives, and oftentimes He takes us out of our comfort zones to make us more like Him.

So in closing, I believe that we can only have absolute faith (or as close as a fallen human can get to it) when we have surrendered ourselves fully to Him-that is the biggest show of trust we have. And once we've trusted that He can accomplish the impossible in our hearts and lives, then we will truly have the faith in Him to move mountains.