Faith: Trust Not Force; Not Lack of Sight but Fullness of Insight
by Dr. Peter A. Kerr
Faith stands at the very center of the Christian life, yet it is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the church. Many imagine faith as believing without evidence, as mental assent to doctrinal propositions, or as a test God imposes to sort the faithful from the faithless. Others quietly fear that faith is merely a fragile substitute for certainty—something required only because God has chosen not to make Himself unmistakably obvious.
Faith is none of these things. Faith is not God withholding clarity. Faith is God protecting and nourishing love.
Starting in Eden, God’s aim has never been mere acknowledgment, compliance, or submission. His aim has always been relationship (Genesis 1:26–28; Genesis 3:8). Faith creates the necessary space for that relationship to remain free, uncoerced, and capable of genuine growth. Without faith, love would collapse into inevitability, obedience into self-interest, and worship into fear (1 John 4:18).
Scripture repeatedly affirms that God possesses more than enough power to overwhelm doubt. The biblical story is filled with moments where God’s presence is unmistakable: Sinai trembles (Exodus 19:18), seas divide (Exodus 14:21–22), the risen Christ stands before His disciples (John 20:27). God does not lack the ability to remove all ambiguity. What is striking is not that God cannot compel belief, but that He consistently chooses not to (Matthew 12:38–39).
Faith begins by believing in God’s existence. Most doubt springs from not truly believing in the kind of God He is. That is why Hebrews 11:6 says, “He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (NASB). Seeking presupposes space. Trust presupposes freedom. Love presupposes the real possibility of refusal (Matthew 23:37).
If God manifested Himself in a way that made disbelief impossible, obedience would follow from fear or self-interest rather than love. People would comply in order to gain benefit or avoid loss. God desires obedience born of love because love alone leads to human flourishing (John 14:15). Obedience detached from love may produce conformity, but it never produces transformation.
Faith, then, is not an epistemic weakness. It is relational wisdom.
Faith preserves the integrity of both God and humanity. God remains a personal Father rather than a controlling force, and humans remain moral agents rather than programmed responders (Joshua 24:15). Paul captures this reality when he writes, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Sight constrains response. Faith invites response. Sight overwhelms; faith persuades.
God desires children, not captives; partners, not puppets; lovers, not mere observers (John 15:15). Faith keeps the relationship personal rather than mechanical. It ensures obedience is chosen rather than forced, and that worship is offered rather than extracted.
For this reason, Scripture consistently frames faith not as intellectual conquest but as trust. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5). Trust cannot be compelled without ceasing to be trust. Faith is grounded in God’s past faithfulness and in His revealed character (Psalm 9:10). It begins with the conviction that God exists, deepens into confidence in His power, and matures into assurance of His goodness. Faith grows by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17), as the story of God’s faithfulness forms the soul.
Faith also is needed so that God does not spoil His children. Good parents understand that constant intervention can stunt growth (Hebrews 12:7–11). A child who is never allowed to struggle, wait, choose, or risk never matures into wisdom or love. Protection, when overused, becomes spoilage. Children who receive everything without effort often grow self-centered and entitled. God is a better Father than that.
Faith provides moral and spiritual space—space to choose, to learn, to listen, and to grow. God does not rush to resolve every ambiguity or silence every fear because formation requires patience. Love takes time.
Faith often matures most deeply in seasons of unanswered prayer, unclear direction, or divine silence. God’s apparent distance in such moments is not absence but restraint. He remains present without being overpowering. He guides without commandeering.
God does not speak to someone pre-determined to not obey, as it would merely increase their sin (John 9:39–41). His voice is heard by those who have faith and so are already surrendered to His will (John 10:27). When God does speak, it is to those whose hearts are capable of response. He often refrains from making decisions for His children because He respects their will and knows that exercising the will is essential to becoming fully oneself.
Those who are surrendered to God’s will need not fear His silence. God created a world in which more than one path can be faithful, fruitful, and good. He expects His children to make real decisions. Just as a wise parent encourages exploration while remaining attentive to danger, God allows freedom while faithfully guarding those who listen to Him. Silence is often the place where trust deepens, motives are purified, and love becomes less transactional and more genuine.
Faith is not rewarded in the crude sense of baiting obedience with prizes. If faith were primarily rewarded, people would pursue it for personal gain (Matthew 6:1). Faith is learning to know what God wants so that God’s action neither compels, spoils, nor surprises. God is not training humans through rewards and punishments the way one trains an animal. He does not desire worship motivated by self-interest—whether that interest is miracles in this life or rewards in the next.
Heaven is not for those who strive for eternal gain but for those who have learned to love with God’s love. Faith, therefore, is not performance. It is participation.
Faith is not a work that earns favor or an achievement that impresses God. It is the open posture of the heart that says, “I receive.” It is surrender rather than accomplishment. Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3). His faith was not flawless certainty but relational alignment. He trusted enough to follow, enough to wait, and enough to hope even when fulfillment remained distant.
Faith aligns the human will with God’s will without overpowering it. God responds not because faith forces His hand, but because faith opens the heart. Grace flows where trust makes room.
Sight may secure compliance, but faith forms character. God is far less concerned with producing correct outcomes in time than with forming persons for eternity (2 Corinthians 4:18). All reality is ephemeral, but people live forever. The physical world was not made to be perfect but rather to serve as a training ground for the soul. Faith cultivates patience, humility, courage, and love—virtues that cannot be manufactured through coercion.
This is why Scripture insists that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith pleases God because it preserves what He values most: freely given love. Faith keeps salvation relational rather than mechanical, holiness personal rather than imposed, and obedience meaningful rather than automatic (Micah 6:8).
Far from being a burden, faith is one of God’s most generous gifts. It protects humanity from domination, guards against manipulation, and dignifies people as real participants in God’s life and purposes. Faith means God trusts His children and guides but never forces their maturation. He values who they are becoming more than how quickly they comply. He loves them too much to overpower them.
In a world obsessed with control, certainty, and immediacy, faith stands as a quiet protest. Love cannot be rushed, forced, or engineered. Love must be chosen. Faith is not the absence of light. It is the gentle illumination that allows God’s children to walk freely toward the Light—step by step, hand in hand, learning to trust their Father.
Genesis 1:26–28 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 3:8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
Exodus 19:18 Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.
Exodus 14:21–22 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
John 20:27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
Matthew 12:38–39 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.”
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Jeremiah 29:13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’
Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”
James 1:12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Joshua 24:15 “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
2 Corinthians 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight—
John 15:15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
Psalm 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.
Psalm 9:10 And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.
Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Hebrews 12:7–11 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Proverbs 29:21 He who pampers his slave from childhood Will in the end find him to be a son of rebellion.
Matthew 7:11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.
Psalm 13:1 How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
Isaiah 55:8–9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
John 9:39–41 And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
Philippians 2:12–13 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Ecclesiastes 11:9 Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.
Proverbs 16:9 The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.
Job 23:8–10 “Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him. “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD does nothing Unless He reveals His secret counsel To His servants the prophets.
Matthew 7:22–23 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
1 Corinthians 13:8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
Ephesians 2:8–9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
Genesis 12:4 So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Romans 4:20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.
Hebrews 11:10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
2 Corinthians 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Romans 8:18–23 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Galatians 5:22–23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
