I Trust Your Faith – How Other People’s Faith Can Support Us In Difficult Times

I was speaking to a friend the other day about planning a project at our corps. I generally tend not to believe that God has a plan for us, or that things happen because God wants them to. I believe God is involved in all things and is present at all times, but I struggle with the idea that everything happens for a reason. It’s not something that sits easily with me.

This means that when it comes to planning for the future, I often feel the pressure and anxiety of making something go well. I feel compelled to ensure that every possible problem is identified, and then I worry about whether the thing will work well or not. I feel a sense of weight and responsibility to ensure that things work out well.

Learning to Trust

I would like the kind of faith that trusts that God will bring about good, or the kind of faith that believes that what happens is because God wants it to work out that way. I would probably be happier if I did, and I would almost certainly have less anxiety. But I don’t. I can’t reconcile it with my beliefs about the importance of human agency.

But my friend does believe in God’s plan. She has the kind of trust and faith that gives her the confidence to start new things without feeling the anxiety and pressure to make things work because they either will or won’t, depending on how God chooses to bless or not bless our work. But regardless, the trust is there that God will work good out of bad and that God has a plan that will inevitably come true.

I may not have that kind of faith, but this week I could say, “I trust your faith.” I chose to place my trust in her faith and went out on a limb that I probably wouldn’t have done if I were working from my own position.

Which made me think.

There are times when we have to trust in each other’s faith. Sometimes, this is expressed in the songs we sing, the prayers we say, or the way we share our faith with each other. In each case, something about the way we are joined together in Christ allows us to share in each other’s faith.

Trusting Each Others Faith

When our faith is faltering, or when we are struggling to believe, or when we are just not in a place to hold to a belief, then we can turn to another person’s faith and place our trust in their faith when ours isn’t quite cutting it. They can believe for us. Sometimes that will be enough to carry us through a difficult time, other times it will give us the confidence to try something new, or maybe it will just give us a way of standing in solidarity together when we feel we have run out of resources.

Just as we can believe for each other as individuals, I think sometimes that is the role of the church for us and for humanity as a whole. Sometimes the role of the church is to have faith on behalf of those who cannot have that faith for whatever reason at that time. We can pray and worship on behalf of those who can’t or who are struggling at that time.

I may want to believe that God has an inevitable plan, but I don’t and I can’t. But I’m glad that there are those who do, whose faith I can lean on when my own does not take me where I need to be.

In the same way that I learned to trust my friend’s faith, I have learned the importance of believing on behalf of others. I pray and intercede, ask for forgiveness, seek blessings for those who cannot do those things, and worship on behalf of all those others around me.

Perhaps this is part of the vocation of being a disciple and of being the church: to believe when others can’t and to have the humility to trust in each other’s faith when ours falls short.

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