Locating our Faith

Luke 8:25 

“Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement, they asked one another, who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him” 

If this is your first time reading this verse, let me give you a brief summary of what is going on. Jesus and his disciples are on a boat, and a storm comes. It’s cold, probably raining and the disciples think they are most likely going to die. All while this is happening Jesus is sleeping, and is woken up by the stress, worry and anxiety of his disciples.  

There’s a couple of things to draw from this story, but today, I’m going to highlight the first four words of the verse “Where is your faith?”. I find it interesting that Jesus asked a question in a time of crisis, rather than showing empathy, like he did in previous situations. You see, Jesus already knew the answer to the question, instead his purpose for asking it was for the disciples to self-examine themselves.  

I don’t know how long you’ve been a Christian, maybe you’ve been a Christian for 50 years? 20 years? maybe even a couple of hours. Whether or not your new to Christianity, you’ve heard the question “how can I grow in my faith?” You’ve either asked that question to yourself, heard a friend say this to you, or simply eavesdropping in another conversation. 

I’m not here to answer that question, well not the way you would expect, only partly. A lot of the times we picture faith as something that starts out small but with years and years grows, and I think that is true, faith does indeed grow, but I also don’t think it’s that simple.  

In order to experience more of God in your life, you need to put your faith in God in more aspects of your life. Faith is not simply something that grows, it's also something that moves and is transferrable. The reason why Jesus asked the question “Where is your faith?” was because the disciples had more faith in the storm rather than in Jesus. He never said, “You lack faith” or “you have no faith”, he knew they did, they just placed it in the wrong place. 

As humans, God has put a natural inclination in us to have faith, it’s just a matter of where we decide to put it (that faith is intended for God simply) We need to navigate every aspect of our lives to the location of God, that way we become the most fruitful. 

It’s all good knowing this, but it’s empty words when we don’t put it into practicality. The simple solution to locating our faith is prayer. Prayer in itself is an act of faith, you’re essentially including God in your life, and if we do this with more areas of our lives, we are actively locating our faith. Prayer is an invitation to God’s intervention.