Every evening when I go to bed, I trust the sun will rise again the next
morning.  Epistemologically speaking, I can't know it will; it is an
assumption based on trust and past experience of the sun's rising.  Modern
physics gives me an edge, however, toward regarding it as a certainty of
sorts.  Many ancient peoples believed it only came up due to their fervid
praying it so every day before the dawn.  Nevertheless, it is merely my
faith in God's natural order that leads me to believe it will happen on a
daily basis.

Trust seems to be a key word when it comes to the concept of "faith":
trust-not in guaranteed outcomes-but in someone's word or something's
inevitability or some eventuality.  In order for it not to be considered
"blind" it must be based on past experience involving some consistency;
there must be a "track record" of sorts leading to particular outcomes.
Even so, guarantee or certainty is never an element of actual faith.  As
regarding specific outcomes in situations, we may speak of probabilities, of
eventualities, but not certainty, otherwise God is not free to be God.

Obedience is another key word when it comes to faith.  Can one harbor
doubts and still be considered as validly possessing faith?  Absolutely, but
it takes being willing to move toward a particular destination while
carrying the burden of natural questioning on one's back during the journey.
Thus, "faith" is not something we can, in fact, possess-perfect, pretty,
solid, unscuffed, and untested-but rather something we do, something we are
despite ourselves.  It's not something we make, we force, or will into being
if we just believe enough.  It's God's magnetic compass pointing ahead and
we either choose to follow it or not.  Sometimes, living by faith is easy;
at other times, it's hard work.  But it's better than the alternatives of
nihilistic hopelessness or feeling as if the sunrise depends on my prayer.
The bottom line is, it's all we ever have anyway: God's eventual, eternal
benevolence, leading us on into the future.

In the meantime, don't beat yourself up when you sweat over a job interview
for a position you're sure to get, an important test for which you've
thoroughly prepared, or when the doctor comes at you with a needle all the
while saying, "Just a little poke."

 

Someone from the crowd answered him, ‘Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;

and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.’

He answered them, ‘You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.’

And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it threw the boy into convulsions, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.

Jesus asked the father, ‘How long has this been happening to him?’ And he said, ‘From childhood.

It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.’

Jesus said to him, ‘If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.’

Immediately the father of the child cried out,‘I believe; help my unbelief!’

 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,

was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also ‘was faithful in all God’s house.’

Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honour than the house itself.

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
   as on the day of testing in the wilderness,

where your ancestors put me to the test,
   though they had seen my works

for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and I said, “They always go astray in their hearts,
   and they have not known my ways.”

As in my anger I swore,
   “They will not enter my rest.” ’
Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.

As it is said,
‘Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’

Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?