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The Role of Faith

What Trust Looks Like When Certainty Is Gone

by: Leon Harris

 

Faith is one of those words that almost everyone thinks they understand until they’re asked to rely on it.

 

I used to think faith meant believing hard enough. Or believing correctly. Or believing without questions. Sometimes it sounded like confidence. Other times it sounded like denial. And more than once, it sounded like something other people had but I didn’t.

 

If I’m honest, faith often felt fake to me. Or fragile. Or like a thin layer of optimism stretched over very real pain. I assumed that if faith were real, it would feel stronger than this. More certain. Less conflicted.

 

What I eventually learned—slowly, and not without resistance—is that most of those assumptions weren’t biblical at all.

 

They were cultural.

 

What the Bible Means by Faith

 

The Bible’s most well-known definition of faith comes from Hebrews:

 

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

 

That sounds poetic, but it’s easy to misread. Faith is not described as certainty about outcomes. It’s not confidence that everything will turn out the way we want. And it certainly isn’t pretending we don’t see what’s right in front of us.

 

Biblical faith is trust—specifically, trust in God’s character.

 

Faith does not say, “This will work out.”

Faith says, “God is still God, even if it doesn’t.”

 

That distinction matters. Because one collapses the moment circumstances go sideways. The other can survive disappointment, confusion, and loss.

 

Scripture repeatedly calls people to trust God even when the path ahead is unclear. “Lean not on your own understanding.” “We walk by faith, not by sight.” These aren’t commands to shut our eyes or stop thinking. They’re acknowledgments that our understanding is limited—and that God’s faithfulness is not.

 

Faith, then, is not blind belief. It’s informed trust in Someone we’ve come to know.

 

The Hangups We Don’t Like to Admit

 

Most people don’t struggle with faith because they’re rebellious or hardened. They struggle because faith has been oversold as something it isn’t.

 

One of the most common hangups is doubt.

 

Many of us quietly assume that doubt disqualifies faith. If we were really faithful, we wouldn’t question. We wouldn’t waver. We wouldn’t feel torn. But Scripture tells a different story. David doubted. Job questioned. The disciples panicked. Thomas hesitated. These weren’t faithless people—they were honest ones. (Psalm 13; Job 3; Matthew 28:17)

 

Doubt doesn’t cancel faith. Silence does.

 

Another hangup is suffering. Faith feels especially fragile when life hurts. When prayers go unanswered. When healing doesn’t come. When the weight doesn’t lift.

 

Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed the idea that faith should make life smoother. Easier. More manageable. But the Bible never promises that. In fact, it often warns us of the opposite.

 

Faith does not remove pain. It reorients us within it. (John 11:35; Psalm 22:1)

 

And then there’s the hardest question of all: If faith works, why hasn’t God fixed this?

 

That question doesn’t come from arrogance. It comes from exhaustion. From disappointment. From waiting longer than we thought we could.

 

The uncomfortable truth is that faith is not a mechanism for control. God is not a lever we pull. Faith doesn’t obligate Him to operate on our timeline. It calls us to trust Him even when the timeline doesn’t make sense.

 

Faith in Practical Terms

 

If faith isn’t optimism or certainty, what does it actually look like in real life?

 

Often, it looks unimpressive.

 

Faith looks like continuing to pray when prayer feels hollow. Like telling the truth when lying would protect you. Like taking the next right step without knowing where the road leads. Like showing up again when quitting would be easier.

 

Faith acts—not because the outcome is guaranteed, but because obedience still matters.

 

This is where faith is often misunderstood as passivity. As waiting. As standing still until clarity arrives. But biblical faith moves. Abraham went without knowing where. Peter stepped out of the boat before the water held him. Faith does not wait for certainty. It responds to trust. (Genesis 12:1–4; Matthew 14:28–31)

 

Not recklessly. Not blindly. But faithfully.

 

How Faith Actually Grows

 

This is the part few of us want to hear.

 

Faith does not usually grow in comfort.

 

Scripture is blunt about this. Tribulation produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character. Character produces hope. Time and again, the pattern is the same: pressure precedes growth. (Romans 5:3–5; James 1:2–4)

 

That doesn’t mean God delights in suffering. It doesn’t mean every hardship is sent by Him. But it does mean He uses what we endure to refine what we trust.

 

Tribulation has a way of stripping away illusions. It exposes the things we leaned on without realizing it—control, approval, certainty, self-reliance. And when those supports fail, faith is no longer theoretical. It becomes necessary.

 

Looking back, I can see that some of the deepest growth in my faith happened when I felt the least faithful. When prayers were more honest than hopeful. When trust was chosen daily, not felt instinctively.

 

Faith, it turns out, grows the same way muscles do—through resistance.

 

What Faith Is Not Asking of You

 

Faith is not asking you to have everything figured out.

 

It’s not asking you to silence questions or suppress grief. It’s not asking you to pretend you’re okay when you’re not. It’s not asking you to feel strong all the time.

 

Faith is asking for honesty.

 

Honesty with God. Honesty with yourself. Honesty about what hurts, what confuses you, and what you don’t understand yet.

 

One of the most sincere prayers in Scripture is also one of the shortest: “I believe; help my unbelief.” That prayer isn’t polished. It isn’t confident. But it’s real—and God receives it.

 

A Place to Begin

 

Faith does not start where we think it does.

 

It doesn’t start with confidence. Or certainty. Or answers.

 

Often, it starts with willingness.

 

Willingness to stay. Willingness to trust incrementally. Willingness to keep walking, even when the path is dimly lit. Willingness to believe that God is still present, still faithful, and still at work—even when we can’t yet see how.

 

If faith feels small right now, that doesn’t mean it’s absent. It means it’s alive.

 

Faith does not require you to be unshaken. It asks you not to walk away. More often than not, that's enough to begin.

 

It’s just something to think about.