What does it mean to be anchored in faith?
Faith, at its heart, is complete reliance on God. My dad often describes it during our new believer training as a muscle—something that has to be exercised, practiced, and stretched in order to grow.
What does exercising that muscle actually look like in real time?
Thankfully, there is not a cut and dry answer to that question because faith must be linked to our heart responses. Too often we think that faith means gritting our teeth and declaring we trust God and everything’s fine, and pushing down our heart’s deepest anguish and questions.
A response of faith can look like holding on to the hope that He will redeem even the most painful experiences, but it can also look like passionate questioning and grief.
Scripture shows us this again and again. We hear Jesus pray both, “Your will be done” and “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” We hear Job cry out in anguish, demanding answers—and we see him also refuse to curse God. Faith is choosing to go to God with everything, whatever our hearts’ reaction to the circumstance is, because God’s love is sure.
Faith in who God is, is the faith that pleases God, not the empty exercise of repeating platitudes. Job believed God was just and loving, and because of that, he dared to speak vulnerably before Him. And God said this honored Him far more than the excuses Job’s friends offered on His behalf.
The good news of Jesus reveals even more clearly how incredibly loving God is, and how certain it is that we can trust Him. The Old Testament is full of stories of God’s faithfulness, but no one could have imagined just how far His love would go.
No one expected the Creator of the universe to come as a baby, to laugh with friends, to weep at a tomb, to spend time with children, women, and outcasts as though they were precious beyond measure. No one expected God to submit Himself to cruelty and humiliation—not for what He could get from us, but simply to rescue us and be with us forever.
This is why the disciples were so unstoppable. The Spirit filled them, yes—but they were also overflowing with joy at this astonishing revelation: that God’s self-giving love is beyond anything they had ever dreamed or hoped, let alone expected.
That is what it means to be anchored in faith. Not a stiff upper lip. Not pretending to the best of our ability that we’re fine with it all. It is resting in God’s self-giving, unconditional love.
