There are certain conditions that cannot be partial. You are either pregnant or you are not. You are either dead or you are not. There are no half measures to these states. Some think of faith as belonging to the same category. Either you have faith, or you don’t. There is no “in between”. They consider faith as absolute confidence with no shades of doubt. They assume that any amount of ambiguity corrupts the whole faith. Faith must be 100% whole, or it doesn’t count as faith. This approach to the question of faith may need to be fine-tuned.

At times, my faith falls in the middle ground of trust, depending on the situation and season of my life. I sympathize with the father who appealed to Jesus for his child, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!” When Jesus challenged the word “if,” the father blurted out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk.9:22-24, ESV). Jesus healed the child. He accepted the father’s quasi confidence. Our Lord responded to the faith that was, even if absolute trust was a level too far at this point.

The presence of faith may begin with the size of a mustard seed, but it is meant to grow. When we first put faith on, it may look like a baggy outfit we cannot fill. Faith allows room for us to expand. The first step of any disciple is to grasp the seed of faith and then begin the ministry of the Spirit to enlarge it towards maturity. Faith doesn’t come fully formed. Faith is learned, and it grows. We learn it in our finances, with our health and our future. We are taught faith when children arrive and when they leave. Our trust is stretched by the known, which is frightening, and the mysterious unknown knocking at our door. A story might help.

There was a period in my life where everything shifted at once. My wife and I chose to answer the leading of God for us. So, we quit our jobs and sold our house, without a destination in mind. Ultimately, we moved to a new province and took up a radically different employment. We sought a new network of support, learned to raise our needed funds for mission work and scaled a learning curve of 90 degrees incline. We empty nested as well. All of this happened within 3 months. To say my faith was tested doesn’t describe the emotional, mental and spiritual demands. I felt like my faith was put on the rack and stretched to a size I wasn’t sure I wanted or required. Hear me well. God was gracious and kind in everything, but the days felt heavy.

About 15 years later, we decided to repeat the experience. I left my job, we moved to a new location and walked unemployed into a mystery. The mystery lasted two years and was pierced by God’s calling to an open door, but it was 3 provinces away. I commuted between home and ministry for a year. Again, God was gracious and kind in everything, and this time, the days were not heavy. Faith that was sown and nurtured in the first experience became a harvest of trust for the second one. Simply put, we learned that God was worthy of our trust; our faith had grown. The advance of our faith wasn’t schooled by the textbook. We always knew the promises of God were true. The gain came by experience, living as if the promises were true. It was as if the muscle of faith was flexed and grew stronger.

So, wherever you stand in the spectrum of faith today, it’s the nature of faith to increase. Your trust today is not what it used to be and is not what it will be, by His grace. Confidence grows in those who know and live His Word.