Behold…the just shall live by his faith. – Habakkuk 2:4, KJV

Many people miss the fact that God’s people of the Old Testament, just like God’s people of the New Testament, were to live their lives by faith. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines “faith” as “strong belief or trust in someone or something.”* So, it follows, that both Old Testament and New Testament believers were, and are, supposed to live by faith by living in a constant state of trust in God.

One big difference between people who are living by faith and those who aren’t is the difference between yielding control versus keeping control over God’s work in our lives. As Oswald Chambers describes in his December 18 installment of My Utmost for His Highest:

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

When we work for God on our own terms, we aren’t trusting Him. We are, instead, expecting Him to trust us as WE decide the best (and most convenient) avenues to accomplish His will in our lives and in the lives of the people around us. When we allow God to use us as He used His own Son, however, we learn by experience what it really means to trust. By yielding control to God, we open ourselves up to the inconvenience, confusion, and persecution that follow faithful servants of Christ. If we are not trusting, then we will whine and complain when we are confronted by such, and The Lord will not be able to use us as effectively as He otherwise could. If we really trust, however, that God will make all things work together for good, then we will neither whine nor complain. We will face trials with the same grace that Joseph, Daniel, and Christ Himself exemplified, and God will be able to use us with ultimate effectiveness to impact those around us.

It isn’t terribly hard to determine whether or not we are living by faith. We simply need to ask ourselves, “How willing am I to be inconvenienced and troubled for His name’s sake?” Also, we can compare our mental answers to this question to our real life reactions when inconvenience and trouble do indeed come. If we aren’t willing to be inconvenienced for Him, or if we don’t react humbly and patiently by yielding control over tough situations to Christ, then we don’t trust God to know how best to use us for our betterment and for the betterment of those around us.

* Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, iPad app.

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