Building faith before you need it is not something most of us think about. We tend to reach for God when the ground gives way, not while we are standing on it. But this week I heard something that has not left me alone since.
HE ALREADY KNEW WHERE TO TAKE IT
My friend Dan Green got a phone call from his daughter. She was crying. Her ten-year-old son had a brain tumor, and surgery was the next morning.
Dan pulled his motorhome onto a freeway on-ramp so he could stop and pray with that little boy.
Notice what he did not do. He did not go looking for God in that moment. He did not wonder whether prayer was the right response, or feel awkward about it, or promise himself he would get around to figuring out what he believed. Instead, he pulled over and prayed, because that is simply what he does.
Dan has been getting up at four thirty in the morning for twenty-five years. Coffee, his study Bible, and time with the Lord. Every day. Long before there was any crisis to pray about.
So when the crisis came, he already had somewhere to take it.
WHY BUILDING FAITH BEFORE YOU NEED IT MATTERS
Jesus told a story about two men who each built a house. One dug down and set his on rock; the other put his on sand. From the outside, on a clear day, those two houses looked exactly the same. Nobody could tell the difference until the rain came and the streams rose and the winds beat against them.
The difference was never in the house. It was in what happened underneath, on the ordinary days when there was no storm in sight.
That is the whole point. a story about two men. Faith is what you reach for when the storm arrives, and you can only reach for what you already have.
WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
Building faith before you need it does not have to be complicated, and it certainly does not have to be impressive. Dan would be the first to tell you he is nothing special - in fact, in a later episode he says plainly that he does not even consider himself a prayer warrior.
What he has is a habit. Coffee. A Bible he does not have to go hunting for. A few minutes of talking to God the way you would talk to a friend. Then he asks the Holy Spirit to show him something, and he reads.
That is it. Twenty-five years of that.
You could start tomorrow morning. Ten minutes, one chapter, and a short conversation with Jesus about how you are actually doing. Nobody is grading you.
IF THE STORM ALREADY CAME
Now I need to say something directly to a specific person reading this, because I do not want anyone walking away from here feeling like they missed their chance.
Maybe you are already in it. Maybe the diagnosis came last month, or last week, and you are reading about building faith before you need it and thinking, well, that ship has sailed for me.
It has not. Not even close.
Jesus never once told anybody they had come to Him too late. The thief on the cross had hours left and he was not turned away. Dan himself will tell you that the two years since his diagnosis have grown his faith more than the decades before it. Hard ground grows deep roots, and God is not standing there with a stopwatch.
So if you are starting today, in the middle of the worst thing that has ever happened to you, then start today. That is not second best. That is exactly how a great many of us got here, myself included.
YOU ARE NEVER ALONE
Whether you are building quietly on a calm morning or crying out from the middle of something terrible, Jesus is right there with you. He was out ahead of Dan long before Dan knew there was anything coming, and He is out ahead of you in exactly the same way.
If you do not have that relationship with Him, or if yours has gone cold or weak or angry, please visit our Accepting Jesus page. Nothing else on this site matters as much.
You are NEVER ALONE. Never.