Increase Faith

What does it mean to have faith? And if you don't have a lot of it, what does it mean/look like to build up your faith? Specifically, what does one do if one finds their faith in Christ lacking to the point where one is unsure if they have any faith at all?

I sometimes find myself faced with these questions, which leave me looking within in order to try and muster up some more "faith" as if it's some kind of power in and of itself, all the while ignoring the reality that faith is nothing without an object. Nobody simply "has faith". We all have faith in something or someone. It's similar to love, in that you don't just have love. Your love must have an object, a person or thing which you can say you love or that you are in love with. And in much the same way that love grows, one of the sure ways to increase faith is intimate knowledge of the trusted object. This is how it should be with regards "faith in Christ". Christ is the object, and faith in Him grows through deep, piercing knowledge of His person, character and work.

This truth is beautifully articulated by Clement Read Vaughen in a letter written to theologian Robert Lewis Dabney (a text I came across in the book Why Johnny Can't Preach). Dabney became blind and weak in his latter years, and knew that death was imminent. He wrote to Vaughen, wondering if he would have faith strong enough to face his end. Vaughen replied with an illustration of a traveller encountering a chasm over which a bridge crossed:

What does he do to breed confidence ion the bridge? He looks at the bridge; he gets down and examines it. He don't stand at the bridge-head and turn his thoughts curiously in on his own mind to see if he has confidence in the bridge. If his examination of the bridge gives him a certain amount of confidence, and yet he wants more, how does he make his faith grow? Why, in the same way; he sill continues to examine the bridge. Now my dear old man, let your faith take care of itself for a while, and you just think of what you are allowed to trust in. Think of the Master's power, think of his love; think how he is interested in the soul that searches for him, and will not be conforted until he finds him. Think of what he has done, his work. That blood of his is mightier than all the sins of all the sinners that ever lived. Don't you think it will master yours?...

Now, dear old friend, I have done to you just what I would want you to do to me if I were lying in your place. The great theologian, after all, is just like any other one of God's children, and the simple gospel talked to him is just as essential to his comfort as it is to a milk-maid or to a plow-boy. May God give you grace , not to lay too much stress on your faith, but to grasp the great ground of confidence, Christ, and all his work and all his personal fitness to be a sinner's refuge. Faith is only an eye to see him I have been praying that God would quiet your pains as you advance, and enable you to see the gladness of the gospel at every step. Good-bye. God be with you as he will. Think of the Bridge!

Your brother,
C.R.V.

Deep-seated knowledge of the Messiah whom Paul claims is in you is a sure way to increase faith in Him, but of course the necessary knowledge is not merely information held in the head. To extend the bridge illustration, it's no good examing the bridge every which way possible, concluding that it is a well built bridge, but then deciding to stay on the same side of the chasm. There must be an experiential knowledge of the bridge's trustworthiness for the knowledge to be incarnated and complete. This is where a cerebral person like me falls down. I want the knowledge without the experience, the reception without the response, but that just won't do.

When encouraging others in faith, we would do well to remember the strategy employed by the author of Hebrews. Relate to others:

Who Jesus is
What Jesus has done
How we should respond - with confidence, but not with complacency