Sometimes faith is an instrument of change: at other times it's a means of survival. It's what gives us the tenacity to trust in God when His will seems to clash with ours. Often our faith is perfected more when things don't change, than when they do. You don't need faith for what you can see, or have already attained: you need it when life makes no sense, when you can't explain why the baby dies, the job falls through, or the marriage isn't working. Why the righteous still suffer and the bereaved receive no comfort. We always think that there is only one good outcome to all our woes - the one we want.

Often the toughest times in life are those moments when everything we know about God and His love, doesn't seem to help - all we hear is silence, but whenever God doesn't say a word, then He's still teaching us, even in stillness. He's allowing us to grow by forcing us to think, study and arrive at our own conclusions, while He stands by like the loving parent He is, faith comes by hearing and seeing, but patience comes by silence. Patience is what God gives us when bad things remain unchanged. It's His sedative for the troubled heart, it's the balm He rubs into our aching muscles when He feels we are being stretched to breaking point. There are times in our lives when the pain lasts so long that only God can give us the sheer grace to get us through the nightmare we find ourselves in.

We must always trust the character and plan of God: who He is and what He does. We must see Him at work in whatever comes our way and even when we can't, we must always trust in Him for this is the corner stone of our faith.