What Do You Trust When Everything Else Falls Apart?
When Faith Gets Real
You say you’re not religious, but you live by faith every day.
You have faith in your talents and abilities, trusting that they’ll help you make a living.
You have faith in your partner and closest friends, expecting them to offer love, encouragement, and comfort when you need it most.
You have faith in the sun, trusting it will rise tomorrow, even though you’ve never had to ask it to.
Faith is part of your everyday experience — it’s the things you expect as you go along in your life, even in things you can’t control. So it’s not a question of whether you have faith or not. You do. It’s a matter of what you are placing your faith in.
What Faith Isn’t
Faith is essential to life, but it doesn’t always work the way some people think it does.
Faith does not give you what you always want.
Faith is not an enchanted shield that repels the arrows of misfortune.
Faith cannot make life unfold to your liking, erase all doubts or fears, or promise immediate answers to all your difficult questions.
So what good is faith?
The word for “faith” in the New Testament can also be translated as “faithfulness.” Sometimes, faith can be delusional:
“I have faith that I’ll win this week’s lottery.”
“I have faith that my husband will come back, even though he’s sleeping with another woman and the divorce papers are drawn up.”
“I have faith that the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl this year.” (Odds are not in your favor, despite your sincere faith).
Faithfulness builds on faith, but goes even deeper. It’s about dedication and perseverance, not in spite of evidence, but because the foundation of that faith has been tested and proven trustworthy. While blind faith clings to wishful thinking, faithfulness is an informed, steady response to a God who has shown Himself faithful, even when outcomes aren’t immediately clear. That’s why Hebrews 11:1 says,
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (NKJV).
The word “substance” points to something solid — Christ, who is described in Hebrews 1:3 as the very essence of God, His exact representation. Similarly, “evidence” refers to something proven through examination, revealing its character.
Faith, then, is not a vague hope but a deep inner assurance that God is real and Christ is true. With the help of the Holy Spirit, faith moves Jesus from flat words on a page to the living, tangible Presence that He is, which, in turn, generates faithfulness to His promises and purposes.
And She Believed
In his bestselling memoir, Everything Sad Is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri recounts how his sister, Dina, saw a man by her bed one night. She was understandably frightened until the man calmed her, telling her not to be afraid. The next day, Dina told her mother about the incident, and the mother knew that the man was Jesus.
Nayeri writes, “Sima, my mom, read about him and became a Christian too. Not just a regular one, who keeps it in their pocket. She fell in love. She wanted everybody to have what she had, to be free, to realize that in other religions you have rules and codes and obligations to follow to earn good things, but all you had to do with Jesus was believe he was the one who died for you.
And she believed.”
That is what faithfulness in Christ looks like. Sima’s faith would soon be tested in a way most of us will never experience. Living in Iran, a country hostile to Christians, she was abducted by the secret police for interrogation. Despite the looming threat of torture or worse, Sima stood firm in her convictions, refusing to deny Jesus.
There comes a moment in all our lives when we realize that the things we’ve trusted won’t save us. Then what?
In that moment, you find what truly holds you. For Sima, it was Christ. And when everything else fell away, she stayed faithful.
