Trust His Faithfulness

“O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty like You, O LORD? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.”

Psalm 89:8 (NKJV)

Faith is not the confidence that God will always do exactly what we have pictured in our minds.

That definition is very common and it causes enormous damage, because it eventually collides with reality. Sooner or later something does not go the way we believed it would, and if faith was confidence in the outcome, then faith itself appears to have failed.

Sometimes people say, “I had faith this would happen,” when what they honestly mean is, “I wanted this very much.” Those are not the same thing, however sincerely they are felt.

Biblical faith is deeper and sturdier. It rests on who God is and on what God has actually said.

The psalmist writes, “O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty like You, O LORD? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.”

Notice the image: faithfulness surrounds Him. It is not an occasional behaviour; it is the atmosphere around His throne. Faithfulness is not something God does when circumstances are convenient. It is what He is.

And notice where this verse sits. Psalm 89 is one of the most remarkable psalms in the Bible for exactly this subject. It begins with soaring declarations of God’s covenant faithfulness to David, and then, from around verse 38, it turns into a lament: “But You have cast off and abhorred.” The same psalm that celebrates His faithfulness also cries out because the writer cannot see it. And it does not resolve neatly.

So Scripture itself holds together a confident declaration of God’s faithfulness and an honest complaint that it is not currently visible. If your experience feels like that, you are in a psalm, not outside the faith.

Now, consider Abraham, since Paul makes him the model. Romans 4:20-21 says he “did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”

Look carefully at the object of that confidence: what He had promised. Abraham’s faith was not confidence in a preferred outcome he had generated. It was confidence in a specific word God had spoken to him. That is the crucial distinction. Faith is not believing hard; it is trusting what God has actually said.

Which means faith is only as reliable as its object, and that is very good news, because it takes the pressure off the size of your believing. A weak grip on a strong rope is safer than a strong grip on a frayed one. The father in Mark 9 prayed, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” and his son was healed. Jesus did not send him away to work up more certainty.

And this means faith can survive disappointment.

If the outcome is different from what you hoped, God has not suddenly become unfaithful. He is not on trial in your circumstances. We may not understand everything He permits, and honesty about that is better than pretending. But His character has not shifted. Lamentations, written from the ruins of a destroyed city, says, “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Those words were written by a man looking at rubble.

Let me guard something practical here. This is not an invitation to lower your expectations of God or to stop asking boldly. Jesus told us to ask, seek and knock. Bold prayer and settled trust are not opposites; the same person can pray with great expectation and hold the result with open hands.

So what do you do when your confidence feels thin?

Stop trying to manufacture more emotional certainty. That is exhausting and it is looking in the wrong place. Faith is not a feeling you generate by concentration.

Return to what is solid. Ask two questions. What has God clearly promised? And what does His Word reveal about who He is? Write the answers down if it helps. Start there rather than starting with how convinced you feel.

Then remember the ultimate proof. Paul’s argument in Romans 8:32 is unanswerable: He who did not spare His own Son, how shall He not also freely give us all things? The cross is the evidence that settles God’s faithfulness before any of today’s questions are answered.

Faith grows when our attention moves from the size of our confidence to the faithfulness of our God.

Let me add one more thing about how faith actually grows, because it is not what most people expect.

Romans 10:17 says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Not by effort, not by atmosphere, not by concentrating harder. Faith grows in people who keep putting themselves in front of what God has said.

That is remarkably practical. If your faith feels thin, the answer is not to strain. The answer is to feed. Read the accounts of what God has done. Read the promises He has actually made. Read them regularly, whether or not they move you on any given day.

Faith is built the way a body is built: by ordinary, repeated feeding over time.

So do not put faith in your preferred outcome. Put faith in the faithful God, and let His character become the ground beneath your feet.

Prayer

Father, faithfulness surrounds You; it is not something You occasionally do. Forgive me for the times I have put my faith in my preferred outcome and then wondered whether You had failed. Teach me to build on what You have actually said rather than on how convinced I feel. Where I am disappointed, hold me, and let me be honest with You about it as the psalmists were. And when my grip is weak, remind me that the strength is in the rope. You did not spare Your own Son; I can trust You with the rest. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Declaration

My faith rests on God’s character, not on my preferred outcome. His faithfulness does not depend on my circumstances.

Pastor Ras

All Nations Community Church

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