Declaring and Believing Are Not the Same

An immense crowd was watching the famous tightrope walker Blondin cross Niagara Falls one day in 1860. He crossed many times—a thousand-foot journey, 160 feet above the turbulent waters. And he did not merely cross; he did it while pushing a wheelbarrow

. A boy watched the feat in obvious amazement. During one of those crossings, Blondin looked at the boy and asked him, “Do you believe I could take a person across in the wheelbarrow without falling?” “Yes, sir,” the boy replied. “I’m sure you could.” To which Blondin answered, “Well then, climb in, son!”

It is one thing to declare with our mouths that we believe. It is another to believe enough to act in accordance with the confession we have made. Often, our pious declarations lack the depth and definition needed to qualify as faith. When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, the Lord answered them, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Luke 17:5). In other words, as Jesus saw it, the disciples did not even have the little faith they thought they had!

We must ask the Lord to bring our mental, general belief to a state of deep conviction and spiritual maturity that allows it to qualify as true faith. Our weak affirmations of faith must reach the state spoken of by the writer of Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

The true posture of faith is the womb in which the Lord’s miracles can be conceived. There must be an open and expectant womb for the life of God to be conceived within us. It is important that, if we draw near to God, we believe that He is faithful and that He rewards and recompenses those who seek Him.