When I was a teenager, a rock star named George Michael told me “you gotta have faith.” I didn’t really know what he meant, but he had a low-cut shirt and good dance moves so I believed him.

My views on faith have grown up. Look at this passage in Hebrews:

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Hebrews 11:6 NIV

Continuing on in this month’s theme of the goodness of God, the above passage relates more to God’s goodness than we can even imagine. It takes faith to believe God is good when our circumstances aren’t.

When a relationship ends? God is good.

When you hit rock bottom? God is good.

When you got in too deep and can’t see a way out? God is good.

It’s not a cute soundbite to slap “God is good” at the end of sentences like that. It’s a sheer act of faith. It’s resting in the knowledge that even when the facts on the table look bad, God can take the circumstances that threaten to bury us and plant a flag of ministry in them. This requires leaning toward Him and His promises with confident expectation. That’s faith. That’s pleasing to Him.

Taking the Hebrews verse, let’s break the last part into two segments:
1. Believing He exists.
2. Believing He rewards those who seek Him.
Both of these are huge acts of faith.

Do you believe God exists, friend? Do you believe it in your bones? Do you see His hand in your life? Do you ask Him to come near? Do you know that you know that you know He is real?

And, second question: Do you believe He rewards those who earnestly seek Him? Or have you been let down and so you assume God doesn’t really aim this verse at you? Inside do you think maybe God parted the Red Sea, but He won’t part your “Red Sea”?

We’re going to have a hard time pleasing God if we don’t believe God. In fact, it’s going to be impossible. And then we’re on a spiral we don’t want to be on because our Christian life becomes a tangled-up mess of asking for the goodness of God without really believing God has the ability or character to deliver it.

Friend, so often we get it backwards. We ask God to please us. We want Him to give us the relationships or jobs we want. When He does we call Him good, and when He doesn’t we call Him distant or harsh. But it’s totally the other way around: God wants us to please Him — and even with our messed-up lives, trembling bottom lips, and fractured relationships, we can do it! All we have to bring is childlike faith in Him. His goodness doesn’t hinge on our circumstances, it hinges on His very character. Just look at these verses:
 

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”

Psalm 27:13 NIV

 “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” NIV

Psalm 23:6

 

And my favorite …

 

“You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.”

Psalm 119:68 ESV

God is good and He does good. It’s His character and His behavior. And He mysteriously and unexplainably aims both at us. As Bob Goff has said, “We’re following a God we can’t see, in a lifetime we can’t measure, for eternity we can’t fathom. Faith isn’t a bunch of facts.”

Faith is the key that turns the lock of pleasing God. Do whatever you can to build it, friend! Spend time daily in the Word. Look at how God has come through for you in the past. Spend time with friends who love Jesus. Pray for God to increase your faith. Risk stepping away from the doubts that lock you up into the wild abandon of a faith that pleases God. What do you have to lose?

Maybe the better question is, what do you have to gain?

Laurie Davies- ARISE Marketing Strategist and Content Creator