05/27/2026
Let’s talk about faith for a moment. I’ve witnessed people with good intentions tell a warrior with a cancer diagnosis that “they just need to have more faith”. Although they mean well, this rarely uplifts the warrior, actually it makes them question if their faith will ever be sufficient and can often cause feelings of despair. The advice sometimes makes one feel like Job when his friends questioned him on what he must’ve done to be afflicted with the many troubles that came his way.
Through my own journey I sought answers to the question, “Does it mean I lack faith when I have times of anxiety or worry?”. It was only after reading the story of Gideon, again, that I began to wrap my mind around how worry interacts with faith.
Gideon was a man chosen by God to defeat the Midianites, a tribe of people that plagued the Israelites and caused them to live in fear. He was extremely resistant and doubtful to what he was called to do, and even after confirmation of him being chosen he still questioned, worried, and asked for further confirmation. Even after further confirmation he was most likely even more concerned when he gathered 30,000 men to accomplish the task he’d been called to lead….only to have God reduce that number to 300, which I’m sure caused even more worry and concern….the difference, I believe, was Gideon’s willingness to pray and seek the Lord with his worry and concern.
Faith doesn’t mean we’re absent of worry, anxiety, or concern. Faith is walked out as we choose to take those things to the Lord in prayer and trust Him to address them for us.
We’re not in this fight alone and faith does not make one impervious to worry or anxiety. The faithful man and woman simply turns those over to the Creator and walks out his faith prayerfully each day.