I want to believe… but I can't

We've all heard about teenagers who started businesses on the internet and made a million. Or athletes who were determined they would win an Olympic medal from the age of six, trained for twenty years and won their medal. Or politicians who decided they were going to be prime minister, worked at it, and thirty years later, they were.

There's two things abou all these people. First, they must have had an enormous amount of faith in themselves, and, second, they are almost nothing like most of us.

Just trying to imagine that kind of self-belief gives most of us a headache.
When people talk about faith, they often talk about it as if it needed the same baffling — even ridiculous — level of certainty that these people have.

But actually, this is in fact nothing at all like Christian faith.

This may surprise you: you don't have to believe very much to become a Christian. Jesus Christ explained that you only have to have belief the size of a tiny mustard seed to have enough faith to tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea.

How come, and how do you get this kind of faith? this

Little faith, big God

Mark Twain, the atheist and writer, once quipped "Faith is being sure of things you know aren't true." Maybe for him. But this is exactly the opposite of the kind of faith the Bible talks about. Mark Twain's idea of faith is an absolute tonne of faith making up for the thing you believe in not having any power at all. Christian faith is about a very small amount of faith in a very, very powerful God. For the Christian, the question is not how 'hard' he believes, but whether or not the thing he believes in is true.

Believe, act

You can become a Christian with a very small, wavering faith.

It's like getting the train from Stechford to Coventry. If you're on the right platform, you've bought your ticket, and the train pulls in with 'Coventry' on the front, then you're probably fairly sure that it's the right train. So far so good. But to actually turn that belief into something effective, you have to get on the train. Of course, it's possible that you are wrong. You will only know that it's the right train when it arrives in Coventry, although if you know the route then your confidence will grow as you pass through Lea Hall, Marston Green, Birmingham International, Hampton, Berkswell, Tile Hill and Canley Halt.

Actually, you can still get to Coventry even if you have almost no confidence that the train will get there. Someone might have told you that the trains are all stopping before Coventry, or you could have a pathological distrust of the railways, or you could be so stressed that you panic, and have to keep asking the other passengers all the way along the route. But if you have just enough confidence to actually get on the train, then it will take you to Coventry.

Becoming a Christian

You can find out how to become a Christian here. The believing part is about believing that the Christian gospel, the 'good news', is actually true. The acting on it part is about asking God to come into your life and change it. If that all sounds too simple and easy, you have to remember that — as far as the Bible is concerned — God has done all the work. It's as if God has taken 99 steps towards you, and you just have to take the one final step towards Him.

Stechford Baptist Church • Victoria Road • Stechford • Birmingham B33 8AH. Map. Stechford is in the Stechford and Yardley North Ward, and is close to Hodge Hill.