You don't need more faith (probably)
"I need more faith."
Those words were frequently in my mind when I was a new follower of Jesus. I would hear about prayer warriors who prayed big prayers with big results and think to myself, "I can at least muster up a mustard seed of faith, can't I?"
The problem with that mindset is when God was silent and my prayer went unanswered, it was clearly my fault.
When it comes to a seemingly silent God and unanswered prayer, has someone ever told you that you need more faith? Have you ever told yourself that?
Chances are, they (and you) were wrong.
We sometimes have an inadequate understanding of faith, and think it's a resource for prayers that works like electricity - turn it on, pray our prayer, maybe turn up the amperage, and the prayer works. If it doesn't work and I've turned up my faith-amperage as high as I can, then the result is guilt, disappointment, or anxiety. Why can't I be better at this?!
Our prayers leave us without peace.
But the resource we need for a more peace-filled prayer life is not faith. It's trust.
In his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Tyler Staton puts it this way:
"We fear [God's] silence. But the thing that calms that fear isn't faith; it's trust. Faith is the assurance of what we hope for. Trust is confidence in the character of God."
In other words, when our prayers seem to hit the ceiling and bounce back at us, when we wonder if God is listening, when we lament our prayer life's "lack of results," the solution isn't to amp up our faith somehow. In fact, there is no "solution" to unanswered prayer, like something we do could possibly entice God or twist his arm to give us what we seek.
We don't need our unanswered prayers solved. We need our anxieties around prayer soothed, and it's our trust in the character of God that reminds us that God is good, all the time.
When my prayers (seemingly) fall to the floor, when my prayer life seems woefully inadequate for the circumstances in which I find myself, when anxieties arise that maybe it's something wrong with me that keeps God silent, the answer is not to will more faith. It's to trust God's character.
This may be a more common problem than we realize. In Mark 1, when the leper approaches Jesus, his words words reveal he struggled with the same thing:
A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.
The leper never doubted God's power. He knew "you can heal me." But he did doubt God's character. He said, "IF you are willing," meaning he wondered if the powerful God would be good and kind to him. Would the healing God actually heal him?
Jesus' next words revealed his character:
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said.
"I am willing." In other words, "You can trust my character."
PAUSE and REFLECT: Do you sometimes struggle to reconcile unanswered prayer? Does your prayer life sometimes leave you anxious?
If your answer to either of these questions is "Yes," and you're like many followers of Jesus, you don't doubt God's power. You know he can. You likely doubt God's character. You don't know if he will... for you.
Some might say their doubt is in their ability to pray ("I need more faith"), but this is actually a subversive way of still doubting God's character. If God is good all the time, he has much grace for our broken prayers and struggling faith.
How might God be inviting you today to let go of the struggle for more faith, and instead embrace the fact that he is a good and loving God, all the time? In all circumstances, regardless of our faith-amperage for the given moment, your God is a good God and he deeply loves you.
No matter what happens after we say, "Amen," even if our prayers seem to fall flat, he says, "You can trust my character," and this trust in God's character will bring peace to our soul.