Often God builds our faith through experiences. Our faith is fed when we see God act. After I saw the Kathryn Kuhlman service I described above, my faith was different. In fact it has never been quite the same since. Because I saw what God could do, I found it easier to believe in what he would do. As I see him doing more things around me in a daily way, I find faith easier and easier. Almost without thinking about it, I have come to expect God to do many things as a matter of course that ten years ago I would have been very excited about. Just today, some friends shared with me some sudden changes in their lives that had come through prayer. I was happy that the changes had happened, but I did not think twice about the way they had happened. I have come to expect that God will work in that way.

God also builds our faith through people who have faith. If we live with Christians who have faith, we will find faith growing in us. If we live with Christians who are fearful and who have little faith, or if we live with little personal contact with other committed Christians, we will find ourselves struggling to keep our faith alive.

Recently the Lord began to speak to our community about having more faith. He told us that we did not count on his promises enough, that we often reacted to situations as if he were not there or would not help us, that we often acted like a group of orphans. That word from the Lord changed us, and our whole community began to pray for healings of all sorts, began to ask him to supply things they needed but could not find or afford, began to ask him to fix machines that were not working, to find things that were missing. Not only did the community begin to pray more for big things, but they also prayed for little things. They tried to meet each situation more consistently in faith.

As those around me began to change, I began to notice something happening to me. I found myself having more faith and expecting the Lord to do more all the time. The change did not come because I took some special steps. It was more because the faith of others “rubbed off.” It felt like I was catching faith from others. And I believe the Lord wants it to be that way. He wants us to have our faith built up by other members of his Body.

The Lord often builds faith in us by directly imparting it to us spiritually. When we are baptized in the Spirit the Lord imparts faith. Many times he imparts faith as we pray. We experience the Lord’s presence in a strong way or we hear him speak to us in a clear way, and afterwards we find that we have more faith. The more we come to know the Lord and the more we experience his reality, the more faith we find that we have.

Although faith grows in us because of what God does to us, we do have a part in the growth of our faith. We can cooperate with him as he works to increase our faith. If we learn some simple lessons, we will find ourselves growing steadily in faith.

Listen to God’s Word

In order for us to grow in faith, we have to hear God speak to us. The words he speaks to us build faith in us. He speaks a message to us that frees us to have faith. Paul explains it this way,

It is hearing the basic Christian truths presented to us that allows us to have the kind of faith we need.

God’s word comes to us in many ways. The most important way is through the scriptures, and therefore if we want to grow in faith, we should read the scriptures regularly. But it also comes through prophecy, through words that other Christians speak to us that are prompted by the Spirit and through words that God speaks to us directly as we learn how to listen for his voice. God’s word is alive, and that means that he wants to speak to us constantly. Moreover, usually it turns out that the things he wants to say to us are the same simple things: faith–building truths.

The truths that build faith the most quickly are usually the most basic truths. For instance, one of the most faith–building truths is that God loves us. He created us because he loves us and he wants us in existence because he loves us. He became man and died on a cross for us because he loves us. His care and concern for us is constant, because he loves us. No matter what situation we are in, we can know that we can count on his love. As we grow in consciousness of the truth that he is a loving Father, we can pray and act in faith more easily. We know in every situation that we can count on him to be for us.

A second faith-building truth is that the Lord is with us. He does not leave us, but he is there with us. That means that whatever situation we are facing, whatever concern we are wondering about, the Lord is there with us. We do not have to act in any situation as if we were alone. We can always expect the Lord to be there and to make his help available. Much of our lack of faith comes simply from our forgetfulness of the Lord.

A third faith–building truth is that Christ is in us through the power of his Spirit. Not only is he with us in every situation, he is in us. That means that we can count on him to act through us, to give us the strength that we need, to supply us with wisdom, to even give us faith. Paul says to us, “Surely you know that Christ Jesus is in you” (2 Corinthians 13:5). To simply be aware of these truths being spoken to us helps us to grow in faith.

There are many faith-building truths. As we listen to the word of the Lord, we will hear those truths being spoken to us. In fact, we can count on the Lord to repeat them to us and draw them to our attention as they grow dim in our minds. The more we live in the light of God’s word, the more we will grow in faith.

Pray For Faith

The following suggestion is a simple, obvious one: we should pray for faith. That is a prayer that God always answers. We should persevere in that prayer until we see it happen within us, knowing that the Lord wants us to have faith and that he will give it to us. As it says in 1 John:

We should, therefore, not pray for faith in a begging way, or in a way that acknowledges that we have no faith. We should pray for it by turning to Christ and remembering how much he wants us to have faith, and how he has given it to so many others in the past when they have turned to him for it.

Be Willing To Try Acting in Faith

When I was first prayed with for the gift of tongues, I was afraid to do anything at all that might be “me”. I would not so much as move my lips, because I was afraid that I would be getting myself into praying in tongues. People worked to get me free from the fear, and after I was willing to try speaking in tongues, a change began to occur. Once one of the attempts I made to speak in tongues was different from the others. There was a different ability to yield to the Spirit, a new spark of faith. If I had not been willing to try, I do not know what it would have taken for me to begin speaking in tongues.

The same lesson applies in more ordinary areas of our lives. We often do not relate to people in a good way, because we do not have the ability to do so, or at least we do not see that ability in ourselves. But once the Holy Spirit has been given to us, we have the source of the fruit of the Spirit inside of us. We have a new power to relate to others well . One of the people I knew well in our community tended to be shy and had a difficulty being able to talk with people. He was afraid that they would not be interested in what he had to say, or, even worse, that he would not be able to think of anything to say. After a few months of his new life as a Christian, the Lord began to let him know that he had given him a new ability to relate to people and that as he tried using it he would see that it was there. He did try, and he could see something new happening. Today he is able to talk freely with a wide variety of people and to serve and care for them in a responsible way.

God wants us to be unafraid. He expects us to learn to have faith, and he will give us faith. If we want to grow in faith for healing, we should pray with people to be healed, and pray for ourselves to be healed. If we do not have the faith to expect God to do things in a given area, we can at least trust him enough to expect him to increase our faith. We may even have to have the persistence of the man who went to his friend at night and demanded loaves of bread; we should be prepared to be that way, and not shrink back. We should not hold back until we feel perfect faith.

Do not Try to “Work Up” Feelings of Faith, But Look to the Lord

Faith is a gift, not a feeling that we have to work up inside. I went through a period of “trying to have faith.” I had notice that at times of genuine faith, I often felt an assurance that God would act. And so when I tried to “have faith,” I tried to produce that feeling of assurance inside of me. I would not pray for someone, or speak, or do anything until I had worked up a feeling of assurance. Well, it rarely seemed to work. It almost seemed, in fact, that the harder I tried to “have faith,” the less it worked. Then I learned an important truth. I began to see that what I was doing was concentrating on myself. I was having faith in my feeling of assurance, rather than in Christ. I was beginning to think that if I felt a certain way, things would happen. But I also rediscovered another truth in the process — that trying to concentrate on having a certain feeling is often one of the worst ways of actually getting that feeling. The more I tried to produce a feeling of faith inside me, the harder it was for me to actually experience it.

We grow in faith, not by looking to ourselves, but by looking to Christ. What we need to focus on is not our own feelings (Christ often works despite them), but on him — on his power, on his promises, on what he has done in the past. What we need to fill our minds with and our hearts with when we try to act in faith or pray in faith is the Lord himself. As we turn to him, he will increase our faith.

Pray With Confidence

How we pray for things makes a big difference in our growth in faith. Often we have a tendency to beg God for things. Over and over we will ask him to give us what we want. The very approach of begging betrays a lack of faith. Whom do we beg but the person we do not believe will give us what we are asking for? God wants us to approach him confidently, as sons and daughters who are sure of their Father. When we ask, we should ask with confidence, thanking him for what he will do, confessing his power and Lordship, praising him. Our prayer should be an act of faith, not an indication of our lack of faith.

I once observed two acquaintances of mine who learned the same lesson, but in a different area. They were in love with one another, and the man had promised the woman that he would love her until he died. When she first heard him say it, she was happy. But she kept asking him over and over if he really would love her until he died. Finally one day they had a fight over the question, and he wanted to know if she had so little trust in him that she would never believe him when he said yes. She felt so insecure about herself that she could not believe him. He felt exasperated and hurt, because her constant asking made him feel that she did not think he could be trusted.

We do the same thing with God at times. We ask him as he were not to be trusted, or as if he did not really love us. Sometimes we call his promises into question. It is true that what that shows is only that we are insecure. But we are treating him in a way that a human being would find insulting. We are praying to him as if we cannot expect him to help us, or sometimes as if he does not want to help us. That gets us into the kind of relationship with him in which it is harder for him to do things for us.

Our prayer is most effective when it is according to the truth. When we acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord and has all power in heaven and earth, when we call to mind his love for us and how much he wants to do for us, then we are beginning to pray in the Spirit of truth. The more our prayer is in the Spirit of truth, the more effective it is.

Resist Spirits of Fear and Doubt

There are many things in us which work against faith: fears, doubts, hesitancies, confusions, anxieties. There is a great deal about the way we are which is an obstacle to growth in faith. But Peter tells us that we also have to be aware that we have to deal with evil spirits who work upon the natural things in us and stir them up, making it more difficult to have faith. Peter says:

“Throw all your worries on God, for cares for you. Be alert, be on watch! For your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him.” (1 Pet. 5:7–9)

Paul tells us,

And James gives the simple advice to us,

One way in which evil spirits work upon us is through lies. They begin to put thoughts into our minds, thoughts which hinder our ability to follow the Lord. They tell us, “it will never work” or “you do not have enough faith” or “God will never listen to someone like you” or “it didn’t work the last time” or any number of different thoughts. When we listen to those thoughts and believe him, our faith begins to drain away. Instead we have to resist them. We have to say to ourselves, “I know what the truth is, and those thoughts are not the truth.” If we give in to all the thoughts of doubt and fear that go through our heads, we will not be able to grow in faith.

A big obstacle to our ability to resist the work of evil spirits is our tendency to live by our feelings. Many of us tend to approach situations with the idea, “if I feel that way, that’s the way it must be.” We think that if we feel we cannot do something, we cannot, or if we feel fearful, we have to act in a fearful way. But we do not have to follow our feelings. If we do follow our feelings evil spirits will have a field day with us, because they can more easily work on our emotions than any other aspect of us. The Holy Spirit give us the ability to follow the Lord no matter how we feel. We have to claim that power and begin to act on it. We have to recall the truth and act in faith even when we are opposed by feelings of fear and doubt.

Go To Where Our Faith Can Be Fed

If our faith is fed by seeing God act and by being in contact with committed Christians who have faith, we should go to situations in which we can see God act and where we can make contact with men and women of faith. If we want to grow in faith, it only makes sense to go where our faith will be helped. For most of us that means looking around for the nearest group of Christians who are beginning to experience growth in faith and joining with them. It is difficult to grow in faith by ourselves.

Of course, we cannot always see God act when we want to (we could if we had the faith, the problem is often getting to the point of faith), nor can we always find a group of Christians who can help our faith. Or sometimes we are part of a group of Christians struggling to grow in faith, but the whole group needs help to grow in faith. Then years ago, I would not have known how to get myself in a situation in which I could grow in faith they way I am able to now. In such a case, books can be a great help. For me, it was the reading of The Cross and the Switchblade that revolutionized my faith. By reading a book on how God acted, my faith was fed, fed to the point where I could make a resolve to do whatever I had to do to grow into the kind of faith that I saw in the book.

Books, in fact, can often feed faith, and if we want to grow in faith, reading certain books can help us. The Cross and the Switchblade is one such book, as is Realities. I Believe in Miracles is another, as are The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi and The Miracles of Lourdes. There are many books written about how God has acted in history that can make us see that what we read about in the scriptures is not just something that happened in a Never–Never Land, nor in a special period of past history, but that has happened in every age since Christ and is happening today to people like us. Amen!

This article is excerpted from Growing in Faith, copyright © 1972, 1980 by Stephen B. Clark, and published by Tabor House. Used with permission.