Where Is Your Faith

I have asked myself this very same question a few times before.  Where is my faith?  If you are like me, you don't really think about faith until we are forced to find it when a need arises, and then we have to confront what we say we really believe.

As each new sunrise brings a new day, I also realize that I am living by faith, (the noun) which means my religious belief in the Lord, but ... I'm not so much living by active faith, (the verb) the mountain moving kind of faith that causes change, the kind that moves Heaven and produces results. 

One of the gospels was written by a physician named Luke, who started his dissertation this way ...

"For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth a declaration of those things which are believed among us ... it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write in order, that you might know the certainty of those things ..."

Luke was a companion and friend of the Apostle Paul.  We don't know if either man ever saw Jesus in person during His short lifetime on earth.  It seems as though both men depended upon the Holy Spirit to give anointing to their writing.  I assume that's why Luke stated that he had a perfect understanding of all the things he wrote about.  That had to be the Holy Spirit.

One of the stories he writes about is found in Luke 8:22-25 ...

"Now it came to pass on a certain day, that Jesus went into a ship with His disciples; and He said to them, 'Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.'  And they launched forth.  But as they sailed Jesus fell asleep; and there came a storm of wind on the lake; and the ship filled with water, and they were in jeopardy.  And they came to Jesus and awoke Him saying, Master we perish.  Jesus arose and rebuked the wind and the raging water; and they ceased and there was a calm."

This same story is also told by Mark and Matthew.  Mark states that after Jesus calms the storm He asks the disciples ... "Why is it that you have no faith?"

Matthew relates that Jesus calls the disciples ... "O ye of little faith."

Luke doesn't record that Jesus spoke of the disciple's lack of or the amount of their faith.  He writes that Jesus said something altogether different ... or so it seems to me.  In Luke's version of events, Jesus asks them ...

"Where is your faith?" 

It sounds to me with this question, that Jesus isn't saying ... "You don't have any faith," but rather ... "What have you done with it?"  Or, He could be asking ... "What have you placed your faith in?"

They had faith or they wouldn't have started across the big lake, known to us as the Sea of Galilee.  They followed Jesus by faith.  It's not that as a group of men ... faith wasn't there ... it was.  It's just that their faith wasn't operating in the right thing.

When Jesus said ... "Where is your faith?" ... He wanted to use this opportunity as a teaching tool.  He had plans for them.  They would need to know that even the storms of life could be overcome by their faith.

Jesus would teach this lesson again later (when Peter misplaced his faith while walking on the water) by asking him this question … "Wherefore didst thou doubt?"   

The word wherefore means … What reason was there for doubt?  If we could just keep our eyes upon Jesus … there would be no reason for doubt.  The reason doubt comes is because we misplace our faith ... hence the question by Jesus ... "Where is your faith?"  Or, I guess the question could be, "What are you doing with it?"  

I assume it to be true, that when Jesus said, "O ye of little faith" to His disciples, He was not pleased with their weak faith.  But it is just as true, that Jesus does not cast off or throw away weak believers.  Weak faith does not mean it is not ... true faith.  It's just that many times there's not much there.  

God permits storms to arise … so we will put our faith on trial.  If our faith is untried, untested, unproven, or our faith is misplaced ... well, then we usually fail.

But when we know that Jesus can and will walk with us on the stormy wave that comes as well as on the calm … the storm makes no difference. 

He who without faith sinks in the waters does so in the calm as well as in the storm; but he who by faith can walk upon them will do so in the storm as well as in the calm … unless circumstances only are looked at and the Lord is forgotten.  If so …  faith fails.

Where is your faith? 

I hope it's not misplaced.