When I look back on my journey, there are many lessons I could have learned a little earlier, a little easier, and perhaps with a little less struggle. But the lesson that changed me the most the one that steadied my spirit and sharpened my vision was understanding faith. The kind of faith that doesn’t just live in Sunday sermons or inspirational quotes, but the kind that shows up in the cold mornings, the quiet nights, and the uncertain seasons of life.
There are a few things I wish someone had whispered to me about faith before life taught me the loud way.
Faith Isn’t the Absence of Fear It’s the Strength to Keep Going Anyway
People often assume that those who have strong faith must never struggle with doubt or fear. I used to believe that too. I thought fear disqualified you from faith.
But I discovered that fear and faith are often neighbors. They coexist in the same heart, the same circumstances, the same chapters of life. What separates them is what you choose to listen to.
Faith doesn’t remove the mountain.
Faith Works Best When You’re Not in Control
Faith gives you the courage to climb it.
This was the hardest lesson of all because like many people, I liked having a plan. I liked knowing how things would go, when they would happen, and who would make them happen.
Then life came along and knocked half my plans over.
In those seasons I learned something I never saw coming:
Faith thrives where control ends.
When you have no guarantees, no certainty, and no blueprint faith begins its work. It teaches you to trust a wisdom higher than your own, and a timing that doesn’t rush just because you are impatient.
Faith Is Not Instant Results It’s Long-Term Transformation
We live in a world addicted to fast results: fast money, fast success, fast validation, fast breakthroughs. Faith does not subscribe to that timeline.
Faith matures you before it rewards you.
Faith reshapes you before it reveals anything to you.
If faith gave you everything instantly, you would never grow roots. You would never learn resilience. You would never learn gratitude. Faith’s delays are not denials they are preparations.
Faith Will Break You Before It Builds You
No one told me that faith includes pruning. No one told me that sometimes faith requires letting go of habits, of people, of identities, of expectations, of plans that no longer serve your destiny.
But in every breaking moment, something new is being formed.
What felt like loss was often alignment.
What felt like delay was often protection.
What felt like unanswered prayer was often a re-directed blessing.
Faith removes what you think you need so you can receive what you actually need.
Faith Doesn’t Always Show You the Path Only the Next Step
One of the most comforting revelations was realizing that faith doesn’t demand you see the finish line, only that you take the next step. And then the next. And then the next.
The path unfolds as you move.
Every dream, every calling, every new season begins with small steps in the dark. You only realize how far faith has carried you when you look back the clarity comes in reverse.
Faith Will Eventually Show You That God Was Working All Along
There were moments in my journey where I truly believed nothing was happening, nothing was shifting, and nothing was improving. But faith is often working silently, beneath the surface.
Just like seeds don’t sprout the moment they are planted, our breakthroughs don’t appear the minute we pray or hope for them. But underground, things are growing roots are forming alignment is taking shape.
Faith isn’t just about believing in the outcome.
It’s about trusting the process that leads to the outcome.
Conclusion: What I Wish I Knew
What I wish I knew about faith is this:
Faith is not about having everything figured out.
It’s not about having no fear, no doubt, or no struggle.
It’s not about being strong all the time or spiritual all the time.
Faith is about believing that purpose exists even in the waiting.
It’s about trusting that God does not waste seasons.
It’s about understanding that every chapter has meaning even the ones you didn’t ask for.
If I had learned these lessons earlier, perhaps I would have worried less and trusted more. But the beauty of faith is that it finds you in the exact season you’re meant to learn it. And once it does, you are never the same.
