The Gift of Faith

Do you struggle with faith? Me too. Maybe, like me, you sometimes find yourself praying, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”[i] This seems not uncommon for a person of faith. But why?

Faith is a gift.

I’m coming to understand how important it is to remember where faith comes from. We do not create or produce faith in ourselves. We do not gain or acquire faith. Having faith is not even an accomplishment. Faith is a gift given freely to us by God — not because we have earned it or deserve it, but because God is the giver of all good things[ii]. God gives us humans the gift of faith so that we may know God when He reveals Himself to us.

St. John Paul II said, “Faith and reason are two wings upon which the human spirit soars in contemplation of truth.” God has gifted us with wings to fly to Him who is Truth. But do we?

I usually don’t. Often, something seems to be pulling me back.

I claim to believe in Jesus Christ, I claim to believe what Jesus Christ has told us and what He has done for us, but I don’t always “feel like” living up to those beliefs. Those three classic enemies that the Church teaches us about — the world, the flesh, and, yes, the devil — confront me from time to time, especially through television and social media in the most subtle ways. Sometimes, I’m tempted by them to doubt divinely revealed truths or even to forget about the gift of faith entirely and live my life as if there is no God.

I confess that I get a little scared when I feel myself wavering in my beliefs. When the challenges that come to you and me as people of faith cause us to struggle, it’s like we are losing our sense of conviction in Christ, in God’s Word. But we need not be afraid, for we are in good company when this happens. We can find many Saints who have been tempted to desert their beliefs, who have struggled with living faithfully. The Bible speaks to faith being tested, resulting in the blessing of perseverance.

Struggle can be fruitful.

Our struggle with faith comes from being fallen humans in a fallen world, humans who are striving to live with divine gifts. We hold sublime truth in earthen vessels[iii] and the earthen vessels are too limited, too frail to be perfect retainers. But this life, this life that we are living here and now, is not for perfection. That ship sailed in the garden of Eden. In this life, we are not going to perfectly hold onto anything, not even the gift of life. There is struggle here, real struggle. And the struggle does not mean that we are failing — oh no! To the contrary, the struggle means that we are succeeding. Think about it. We would not struggle with our beliefs at all if we gave up on them. When truly receiving and employing the gift of faith becomes extra challenging, we could just throw in the towel. But we don’t. We struggle on.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

James 1:2-3

St. Paul was given the gift of mind-blowing visions of God’s glory, of God’s ultimate plan, of everything good and true and beautiful. But then he was given a thorn. He was brought back down to earth, so to speak, and made low, made weak by some kind of suffering, something with which he had to struggle. This, he was given to understand, was also God’s gift. It was a reminder that he is human, an imperfect creature living in a fallen world, and that all the joy, all the good gifts that exist come from God, and God alone. We receive these gifts and partake in these gifts by the grace of God. God’s grace is sufficient to carry us through every struggle and bring us to fulfillment. Truly, when we come through our struggles with faith, we thank God — for it is the grace, the power of God that helps us through all of our weaknesses. This serves as a reminder that we are dependent upon God for everything. Our struggles keep us from being too arrogant so that we remember that all glory belongs to God. Yes, faith is a gift.

The heart receives the gift.

God’s gift of faith is at work in us, even when we feel weak in our beliefs — maybe especially then, because we are striving, we are sacrificing, we are putting our hearts into the work of living out our beliefs. “Credo” means “I believe” but St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas point out that it also means “I give my heart.” So, when we recite the Creed, we are not merely listing things that we acknowledge are true in an intellectual way. We are proclaiming that we give our hearts to God and to the truth that God has revealed to us. We give our hearts to the One who gives us every good gift.

So this, then, is the truest act of God-given faith: to give my heart to God.

Giving my heart can hurt. But not giving my heart is death.

As the season of Advent begins and you and I prepare to celebrate Christmas — God’s ultimate revelation through the Mystery of the Incarnation — let us be mindful and thankful of all of God’s gifts, beginning with the gift of faith. Through faith, we give our hearts to God, who became one of us, taking on all of our limitations and strugglings in order to save our souls from death. As we contemplate the baby, God in the flesh, lying helpless in a manger, how can our hearts not be moved?

© 2023 Christina Chase

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Feature Photo by Jonathan Wells on Unsplash

[i] Mark 9:24

[ii] James 1:17

[iii] see 2 Corinthians 4:7