Turning Positive Thinking Into Faith

Positive thinking is when we approach challenges and situations we find ourselves in with an optimistic outlook. Positive thinking can be a powerful tool in helping to make the most of potentially bad situations. Anyone can become an optimist with the right attitude, but positive thinking is not faith. The one thing that can separate a person in Christ from an optimist is their faith.

In Hebrews chapter 11 the bible says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see". There’s a common saying that "seeing is believing", but that is not what God wants from us. God wants us to believe before we see, he wants us to have confidence and assurance that it doesn’t matter how bad the situation is because with Him all things are possible. Faith requires us to see beyond the physical circumstances and put our trust in God, it doesn’t require the situation to makes sense to us, it just requires us to believe.

Most of us believe in God and pray to him about difficult situations and yet we don’t back our faith with actions. You can’t say one thing and think another in your mind. There must be a complete synergy between our minds and the words we speak with our mouth. What we say must correspond with the picture we have in mind. We can’t have faith without conviction in the word of God neither can we claim to have faith if our words and action do not show it. This brings us to Genesis chapter 22 when God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He wakes up the next morning, gathers everything he will need for the offering and sets out with his son. And in verses 7 and 8 we get to experience the essence of Abraham’s faith, “7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”⁸ Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together”. It was as if Abraham had read Numbers chapter 14:28 “^So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say” before he left for the mountains.

Abraham did not only prove in this chapter that he feared God and had faith, but he also put that faith in action through his words. He didn’t just believe in his mind God was going to come through, he declared it out loud in faith because there’s power in the things we say and when we walk with God and talk in faith, He will not withhold anything good from us.  And as a result, he was counted as righteous because of his faith.

Having faith does not mean we ignore our problems wholly or act like they do not exist. But rather, it requires us to face the truth in our situation yet look past it and keep our eyes on God knowing that with him nothing is impossible. This can also be seen in Romans 4 where Abraham19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

This is the kind of faith God requires from us. The only way in which our faith can be strengthened so that we might adopt a positive mental attitude can be found in Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.