Five Steps to Building Faith

How many times have you wished you had more faith? If you’re like me, you just want to push your life cart right over to those huge bulk containers off of Aisle Five and scoop out a couple more measures. Okay, no humongous spiritual warehouse exists, but over the decades, I’ve discovered five steps to building faith, and I’m excited to share them.

Step One: Follow

One of my favorite inspirational and practical Christian teachers is Dr. Henry Blackaby. Though Henry didn’t phrase it this way, the modern translation of his admonition for building faith is this: Follow your own timeline—backward.

Henry freely shared experiences in the life of his family that centered on the ancient aural tradition of the Bible–storytelling. Recounting past experiences of God’s deliverance from trouble or need, often turned sober faces into smiles and laughter. Just the re-telling of God’s active involvement in their lives increase the faith of each individual gathered around the Blackaby table.

For decades, I’ve practiced such recounting every December 31, giving thanks as I remembered each intervention of the Lord–one month at a time. I recommend it as a marvelous way to end each year and prepare for the next.

For situations that threaten to completely overwhelm me, I set aside an entire day. I focus on detailing every episode I can recall when God saved my bacon or provided the bacon for the empty cupboards and refrigerator. Remembering the past, built up my faith to believe for the present.

Step Two: Ask

Reviewing the timeline right up to the present day of the week can be daunting. Naturally, the negative boils up first, threatening to drown us in all the junk we did wrong in each situation, right? I assure you, the Lord doesn’t see it that way at all.

God is mercifully forgiving. What’s in the past won’t be brought up again by God. The Bible says in Ps. 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.” You and I are a part of the us.

When feeling especially stressed, I ask the Lord if there’s any of the following going on that might be hindering the release of the measure of faith I need:

• Unforgiveness is a huge barrier to faith-building. I’m delighted to report I’m doing a whole heap better in this area than I once did. Now, I respond as soon as the Lord brings a name to mind.

• Procrastination is another of my personal hindrances on occasion. It’s not that I am refusing to obey something I know God wants me to do, it’s just that—well, uh—I’m putting it off until I have more free time. Please tell me you know what I mean; or at least, that you know someone else that does that.

• Disobedience rarely enters my life. I’d say never but I’ve heard that to obey slowly is to disobey, so I’ll stick with rarely.

Step Three: Identify

Faith building begins with the recounting of past victories, but if I stop there, I won’t get any stronger. Reliving the past just primes the pump to press on.

Once the Lord puts His finger on any area He believes hinders my faith-building during the present trial, the ball’s in my court. I examine the list from Step Two and identify any point I can make right immediately. (Note: These are often items I see no relevance to my current need whatsoever.)

Some examples from my past include the following:

• Write a letter (encouraging a person I don’t know well or related to forgiveness issues)

• Give a sum of money (especially to someone not on my favorites list)

• Set aside time (extra prayer, fasting, or devoted to worshiping God without asking Him for anything, etc.)

• Volunteer (for tasks like cleaning the church, being a sub for the nursery, etc.)

Though most of the items on the list seem totally unrelated to my present trial, I learned that these things represented my commitment to obeying God. The Lord saw that as a huge deal.

Occasionally, the item in God’s searchlight is directly related to the trouble or need. For example, years ago I had a significant financial need. In a dream, God revealed to me that I had neglected to repay the $50 I’d borrowed from a friend to pay for vaccinations several weeks earlier. I’d completely forgotten I’d borrowed the cash. While I needed God’s intervention to deal with the large sum, I responded that day to the debt I could pay.

A couple of weeks later, I received written proof that the larger debt had been totally paid… on the very day I’d repaid the much smaller debt.

So, identified list in hand, I move to Step Four.

The rest of the five steps to building faith will be posted next Thursday.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your comments thus far. Do you have any tips you want to share that might help me grow my faith?