One of the biggest problems before the Christian faith today is that all Christians claim they believe in God, but not all of them live according to their own claims. In other words, many of us daily call ourselves Christians, but far too many of us don’t live like Christians.

Let’s look at the relationship between a child and his or her parents as an analogue of ours with God. When a child truly trusts his or her parents, he or she waits patiently and faith till their promises come true. When mummy and daddy promise their son a new bicycle he doesn’t immediately run out, seeking for ways to buy it himself earlier than it’s promised to him. Where there is trust in a relationship between two sides, there is also patience and faith.

Between many believers and God, however, the trust is little… so, naturally, many Christians quickly run out of patience and lose faith. God, on the other hand, doesn’t cease caring for us, but how is it possible to feel Him caring if all the time we’re trying to solve our problems on our own and pay more attention to them than we do to God?

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7, NIV).

Apostle Peter encourages us to humble ourselves before God. In other words – to confess that without Him there is nowhere we can get to; without Him there’s no feature for us; without Him our lives will be an endless fight against yet bigger problems. It’s about time for us to realized that we are the weak and God is the strong one. Doing this doesn’t mean that all of a sudden our lives will be flawless and problems will be nowhere to be seen. If we are humble before God, however, the problems will not dominate our lives but daily we will be above them, with our focus turned to what is of true matter – God.

When we start trusting God as much as we claim that we believe in Him, then we will begin to feel his care in a different, for some of us even unknown way. If we really have trust and faith in God, then as a problem comes before us we will first turn to God with a prayer for help. We will wait on His answer patiently and full of faith. And because God Himself has promised us – the answer will come, undoubtedly.

If, on the other hand, we chose to first go and try fix everything ourselves, with our own strength… or even worse – with money, then we better get ready for catastrophic consequences. Not only materially, but also spiritually. Although God will not cease caring for us and loving us, should we continue living our lives in such a way, we will one day wake up with more faith in ourselves than in God. And this is the day God will become unnecessary. We can easily lose our faith, the people around us, but worse of all – our future.

Our life with God requires daily care and a continual communication with Him. Two or three quickly put together prayers just won’t cut it. We ought to first establish our trust in Him. When this trust is real, then it won’t be hard for you to turn to God even for the smallest of things in life. It will be a joy to tell Him even of the biggest issues and troubles in your life. So, cast your cares on Him because He cares for you. Then you will have even more time to spend growing in your faith and relationship with God.

Perhaps it’s also the memories I have from my childhood, when in the early 90s people were empowered by hope of free life. Right, things didn’t work out quite the same all throughout the ex-communist bloc, but even that didn’t stop the majority of hoping for a change up till about year 2000/02 (in Bulgaria at least). It was around that time that hope found itself in stagnation in Bulgaria. Enough governments had changed for people to realize that they ain’t finding anything good there. So, since then I have the feeling that politics in Bulgaria exists on air and air alone. But not just politics… people as well.

Now they say that the crisis has even reached down there. I cannot but remember the Pope’s words from about a month or so ago, when he stated that any economic crisis would be an example of how unimportant money is (click here for a video). It’s striking to see that ever since the Cold War left the newscasts and daily talks the Northern and Western part of the world has turned life into a pursuit of vanity. First it was big cars, big houses, more clothes, more choices… Then there came mobile phones, computers, MP3 players… plasma TVs, DVD recorders… And today, the same people who sold these to us five years ago are releasing commercials on how destructive they are to the environment and that we ought to buy the new, more efficient models.

What ought to gain even more of everyone’s concern, however, is that people are losing hope. Well, people have lost hope. Thus they don’t even want to fight ahead. Where is the attitude of The Wind of Change? Where is the looking forward to tomorrow? Moreover, where are the people who best know hope in the midst of all of this? What are you and I doing to replace discouragement with empowerment?

I find myself in a disappointing position… Just sitting and watching life pass by, not voicing out much of the hope I have. Sad.

This verse is a part of a passage from the Gospel according to John in which Jesus teaches a lesson on faith to one of his 12 chosen disciples. Although the described event took place newarly 2000 years ago, Jesus’ answer is just as relevant to us today as it was back then to Thomas. Let us question ourselves sincerely – do we walk by faith or by sight? Do we pray by faith or by sight?

The truth is, for many Christians the saying “Gotta see to believe” has become a way of life. Don’t also skip the fact that the society around us encourages us to not trust anything or anyone, before we can touch and see first… And that goes on daily basis. Thus, slowly but steadily many forget about the true meaning of the word faith. This becomes an even greater problem when it comes to prayer. There is a real danger that each of us can lose faith if it is not being nurtured by a continual fellowship with God through His Word. One day you or I can wake up with an unsolvable problem in our lives and offended or even angry turn to God with the words: “Show me and I’ll believe that you have not abandoned me!”

A significant part of the non-believers today use precisely this argument for their unbelief – God has not shown himself in this and that way and that’s why I don’t believe He exists. Sometimes God choses to show Himself in a supernatural way and the faith of those who believe then is counted – just as Jesus reaffirmed Thomas’ faith. But as He said in that same passage – blessed are those who first believe.
A brief look at God’s Word reveals that all who were healed by Jesus had faith before that healing took place. Nowhere is it to be found in the Bible something like: “You have been healed because you first waited to see me and only after that you believed in me.” We should, instead take a lesson from what we can read in Luke 7:1-10 as a part of the dialogue between a Roman centurion and Jesus: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. … When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” So, do you have the faith to say in your prayer “Lord, I know you hear me. If it is your will, do heal… do provide… do save…”?

Sometimes God does not answer our prayers. Other times His answers have nothing to do with how we thought He will answer… One thing is for sure though – if you and I approach prayer with faith and not with requirements or demands, then whether God answers or not we will be drawn closer to Him. And our faith will grow as well.
If, on the other hand, we pray wanting to see a miracle, so that we may believe, then there is a chance we will lose even the little bit of faith that drives us to pray.

Pay attention to how you pray! Move forward fearlessly and in confidence with faith in God through prayer. Only then nothing and no one will be able to stand on the way between you and God.