Saving Faith

"This is what you should be saying to yourself: "He will be to me what He says He is, and He will do to me what He has promised to do. I leave myself in the hands of Him who is appointed to save me. I rest upon His promise that He will do everything He has said." This is saving faith, and when you activate this faith in your life, you will have everlasting life. No matter what dangers, difficulties, darkness, depression, infirmities, and sins may come to your life, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you shall never be condemned. (pg 49)" Charles H. Spurgeon All of Grace (2007 by Bridge-Logos)

Faith is defined as a strong belief or trust in someone or something(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith). Which is a deeper trust; trusting that someone will do nothing to harm you even when it seems like they're intention is for harm, or trusting that when you ask them to do something they will? Having gone through cancer and asking someone(God) many times to heal me and not make me go through what I did but still having to go through it, I can say from experience that the former requires much more trust then the latter. Some people believe that it is because I did not have enough faith in God or that I was not walking in the power of Christ and thus was overtaken with cancer, but I don't agree.

Cancer has a funny way of strengthening people or destroying people, it rarely leaves someone untouched. As I was enduring the nausea, pain and many more terrible symptoms I was often approached about the topic of what I believed faith meant. As you can probably tell from the previous paragraphs, I have a different view than a lot of people. My faith in God never reached a point where I didn't think that He could totally heal me of cancer whenever He wanted, instead it grew past this point to where I trusted Him whatever that outcome turned out to be. I trusted that He was still good, faithful, loving and not seeking my demise even if He chose not to heal me here on earth. Also I grew from a place of thinking I wasn't living with the power of Christ if i didn't demand the cancer cells to disappear in Jesus's name to a place where it took more reliance on Christ's strength to get through the day alive. Faith to me is not the latter example in the first paragraph but the former. I chose to trust in the God behind my circumstances more than in the circumstances themselves.

I struggled with depression, major infirmities, darkness and difficulties yet I still believed that Jeremiah 29:11 was true. I believed that despite facing death head on God would use my suffering for something great just like He has done countless other time for others who served Him, the greatest being Jesus. Saving faith, to me, is not about what i can demand of God but rather really trusting Him even when what you ask for is not given. It's about choosing to trust that God truly does want you to have hope, a future, and blessings even when the way is hard and horrifying. David says it well in Psalm 23 "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for you are with me." (ESV) Just because I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death doesn't mean it was evil or that God had forsaken me. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego said it best in Daniel 3:16-18

"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.  If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

It doesn't matter what happens to us, God is still who God claims to be and we do not have the knowledge to even challenge Him on this (see Job 42:1-6).

True peace comes from the saving faith that we have in God without having to get the results that we ask for. It comes when we can say that we trust God even if the result is death or more suffering because God alone is worthy to be praised and trustworthy. I believe that we need to remember the God behind our faith and to fall in love with Him instead of using Him as a means to get what we want.