O Ye Of Little Faith! Do You Find That Offensive?

If after learning French for a few months you went to France you would struggle to hold a conversation. So if someone were to say to you, you have too little French you need to learn more, you would probably heartily agree with them!

And yet by the same token if someone says, we don't have enough faith, we throw up our hands in horror and retort, 'how dare you say that'. We are deeply offended.

Yet Jesus said, o ye of little faith, on several occasions to His disciples. How would our faith stand up to walking on water if told to step out of the boat?

At the other end of the spectrum Jesus said about the Centurion and the Samaritan woman, that they both had 'great' faith.

This clearly shows there are people with little faith and people with great faith. It is a growth process. So why do we get offended?

Are we mature the day we become believers? Of course not. Just as the day we decide to learn French we are unable to converse in French. Did we feel the person who said we had too little French was trying to be offensive to us? No, they were being truthful, stating the obvious. It was a true fact and we knew it.

James 1 v 2-4 say, 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.'

Faith is clearly something that has to be developed in us through trials and tribulations. Times of testing. James says that this testing of our faith will lead to maturity. Is that not what we are after?

So why are we really offended if someone tells us we haven't enough faith? Please don't stop reading now but the answer is our pride and our self-righteousness!

The problem is our attitude which says, 'I am as good as you'. In one sense that is true. But if you have been a believer 20 years and I have only been a believer 1 year then I can't possibly know or have experienced as much as you.

You have been through tests, trials and difficulties that I have yet to face. You have grown to see how faithful is the Father but I have yet to walk that path. My faith has yet to be developed to that level.

So if we are serious about our relationship with our Heavenly Father, let's stop being offended, and acknowledge and confess our pride and self-righteousness.

Then let's start to really dig into His word and develop our faith and rejoice in the difficulties that come our way knowing that our Heavenly Father has a particular reason for allowing this refining.

Deepening our faith by completely trusting in Him allows for that all-important intimate relationship to develop, without which we haven't really begun our walk of faith.