The Journey of Faith
When we truly contemplate faith, it can be a frightening prospect. Looking back at the great fathers of faith—Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22); Job, who maintained his faith through unimaginable suffering (Job 1-2); and Noah, who built an ark before rain existed (Genesis 6-7)—we quickly realize how far we have to go on our own spiritual journeys, and to be frank, it’s both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Their stories of unwavering trust in the face of impossible odds and circumstances stand in stark contrast to our modern lives, where faith often takes a backseat to daily routines and comfortable certainties.
Many of us, myself included, live in a world of predictable pleasures and manageable challenges. We find contentment in our careers, health, relationships, and material comforts—all wonderful gifts from God, to be sure (James 1:17). Yet there's a profound difference between this everyday happiness and the deeper joy that comes through faith. While we gratefully accept these earthly blessings, we must recognize that God offers us something far greater: a faith that operates on the scale of His infinite love, something that transcends our limited human understanding (Ephesians 3:17-19).
This divine joy, born of complete trust in God, stands apart from our circumstantial happiness. It's a joy that persists through uncertainty, endures through suffering, and deepens through loss (James 1:2-4). I'll be the first to admit—this level of faith doesn't come easily to me. But there's comfort in knowing that God understands our struggles. He assures us that even faith as tiny as a mustard seed is enough (Matthew 17:20), and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Our earthly satisfactions—however pleasant they may be—are inherently temporary (Matthew 6:19-20). Rather than seeing this as a source of despair, we can understand it as God's gentle reminder of our deep need for something more permanent. As Scripture tells us, God has "set eternity in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Every fleeting joy points to our soul's fundamental longing for connection with the infinite—a yearning that no earthly pleasure can fully satisfy.
This spiritual awakening rarely happens overnight. The ups and downs we experience are part of God's grace package, His patient way of leading us to the realization that we need Him (Romans 5:3-5). It requires tremendous humility to acknowledge that even our most successful, comfortable lives remain incomplete without this divine connection (Philippians 3:7-8). Even at our highest peaks of earthly achievement, there remains a space that only faith can fill.
This isn't meant as a criticism of life's pleasures or an argument for ascetic denial. Rather, it's an invitation to embrace something more profound—the deep, abiding joy that comes through faith. Yes, this requires a leap beyond our comfort zone, beyond what logic alone can justify. It asks us to surrender to something greater than ourselves (Proverbs 3:5-6). But in that surrender, we find what our hearts have always been searching for: a joy that transcends all earthly circumstances, rooted in the eternal love of God (Romans 8:38-39).