Throughout the years I have heard people make statements depicting the relationship between faith and circumstances as a direct correlation. Maybe you have heard someone say, “You are having this problem because you do not have enough faith.” We tend to judge people’s faith according to their circumstances. If they are in a bad circumstance it is because they have low or no faith, and if their circumstances are great, it is because they have great faith.
The problem is that the scriptures do not paint that picture. What we see in scripture is that the circumstance rarely has anything to do with it.
I love reading through Hebrews 11. Many have dubbed it the “Hall of Faith.” We see a lot of people commended for their faith in this particular chapter. I remember reading, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.” I had never thought about that instance as having anything to do with faith. It blew my mind in a way.
However, what has always stood out to me is how people are commended in the same way for their faith, yet that same faith led to different circumstances. Some, by faith, escaped the edge of the sword, while others, by that same faith, were killed with the sword. Some, by faith, stopped the mouths of lions, while others, by that same faith, were stoned and sawn in two. Some put foreign armies to flight, while others were mocked, flogged, chained, and imprisoned. No matter the circumstances their faith was commended in Hebrews 11.
Let us be careful with how we evaluate the circumstances of another and ourselves. Let us not directly correlate faith and circumstances, as sometimes there can be an indirect correlation, or maybe no correlation at all. Though faith, in this temporal world, can lead to many places and circumstances, eternally it leads to one place—with GOD, forever.
Grace and Peace.
