27 - Faith Is a Choice

Faith is a choice, not a feeling. It’s not the ability to talk myself into believing that something has already happened. It’s choosing to believe something will happen because God said it would. There are certain people with very energetic personalities for whom faith seems to come easily, but I don’t think a person needs such a personality to please God. Because faith is a choice, not a feeling. It’s a decision, not an emotion, which means it’s possible for anyone to have faith. We need only to listen to Him and then do what we would do if what He said were true. 

That sounds simple and it is, but being simple doesn’t make it easy. Choosing to believe can be much harder than it sounds because His voice isn’t the only one we hear. There are other voices that press us to do what they tell us to do. And to add to the confusion, in such moments the emotions inside us swirl like a storm. What God says may actually produce painful emotions, and in the middle of the storm we look for choices that will relieve that pain. The danger is that relief can be found in some situations by choosing to believe that God won’t do what He said He would do. Sometimes our will and our emotions seem to have minds of their own. Even though our will chooses to believe that God will do what He said He would do, our emotions still seem to believe He won’t.