I wish I could say that living by faith means I always feel confident about what God is doing.
I don’t.
Sometimes I trust Him while still having questions.
Sometimes I obey while wishing He had given me a different answer.
Sometimes I pray and wait…and wait some more…while absolutely nothing around me seems to be changing.
And sometimes faith looks less like boldly marching forward and more like whispering, “Lord, I still trust You,” when everything in me wants an explanation.
That’s why Paul’s words in Romans mean so much to me.
“The righteous shall live by faith.”
Not by what we can see.
Not by what we can control.
Not by our ability to understand what God is doing.
By faith.
And before Paul ever tells us how to live that way, he tells us where that faith begins:
With the gospel of Jesus Christ, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
Today’s Saving Grace of God
Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
Setting the Scene
Paul wrote Romans to believers in a city he had not yet visited. The church in Rome included both Jewish and Gentile Christians, and Paul was preparing to explain the gospel carefully—our sin, God’s judgment, justification through faith, new life in Christ, and what it means to live as people who have been saved by grace.
But before he gets there, Paul makes a declaration.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
That statement carried weight in Rome.
Paul was proclaiming a Savior who had been crucified—a form of execution associated with humiliation and shame—in the shadow of an empire obsessed with power, status, and authority.
And Paul wasn’t embarrassed by any of it.
Why?
Because the gospel wasn’t merely another religious philosophy.
It was the power of God for salvation.
For the Jew.
For the Gentile.
For everyone who believes.
Then Paul reaches back to the prophet Habakkuk and gives us the truth that will run throughout the rest of his letter:
“The righteous shall live by faith.”
We come to God by faith.
And then we learn to live by it.
Reflection
Living by faith sounds beautiful until God asks me to actually do it.
I’d much rather live by sight.
I’d like God to show me exactly what He’s doing, why He’s doing it, how everything will turn out, and preferably give me a timeline while He’s at it.
Then I’ll happily trust Him.
Except…
that’s not faith.
Faith becomes real when I don’t have all the answers.
Paul says the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
That’s where my faith began.
There was a moment when I stopped trusting in myself and believed that Jesus had done what I could never do. I couldn’t save myself. I couldn’t erase my sin. I couldn’t somehow become righteous enough to stand before a holy God.
Christ did that for me.
And if I can trust Him with my eternity, shouldn’t I be learning to trust Him with my Tuesday?
That’s where this verse gets uncomfortably practical.
Because I can say I trust God while still desperately trying to control everything around me.
I can pray for His will and then get irritated when His will doesn’t look anything like mine.
I can believe every word of Scripture and still panic when life suddenly takes a turn I didn’t see coming.
Faith doesn’t mean those struggles magically disappear.
It means they don’t get the final vote.
Fear can tell me everything is falling apart.
I can still trust God.
My circumstances can make absolutely no sense.
I can still trust God.
I can pray for something with my whole heart and receive an answer I never wanted.
I can still trust God.
Not because every situation is good.
Not because being a Christian protects me from heartbreak, disappointment, suffering, or loss.
And certainly not because I understand everything God allows.
I trust Him because He is trustworthy.
There is a difference.
Paul’s confidence wasn’t built on an easy life. If anyone knew suffering, opposition, rejection, imprisonment, and uncertainty, it was Paul.
And still he said:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
Because his confidence wasn’t in his circumstances.
It was in Christ.
Maybe that’s what living by faith looks like more often than we realize.
Not pretending everything is okay.
Not putting on a Christian smile while our hearts are breaking.
Not convincing ourselves that if we just believe hard enough, nothing painful will happen.
It’s looking straight at the hard thing and saying:
I don’t understand this.
I don’t like this.
I may even be afraid of this.
But I still know who my God is.
And today, that’s enough for me to take the next step.
Short Prayer
Father, I wish I could say that trusting You always comes easily, but You know me better than that. I want answers. I want certainty. I want to know where You’re taking me before I agree to follow.
Forgive me for the times I’ve confused faith with understanding.
Thank You for the gospel and for Jesus, who did what I could never do for myself. If I can trust You with my salvation and my eternity, teach me to trust You with the parts of my life I still try so hard to control.
When life hurts, help me trust You.
When I don’t understand, help me trust You.
When Your answer isn’t the one I wanted, help me trust You.
And when fear gets loud, remind me that my circumstances do not change who You are.
Let me live by faith—not because life is always good, but because You always are.
In Jesus’ precious name, I pray. Amen.
Reflection Question
Where am I waiting for God to give me answers before I trust Him, and what would it look like to take the next step by faith even if those answers never come?
Closing Encouragement
Living by faith doesn’t require us to pretend the road is easy.
Sometimes it isn’t.
There will be questions we cannot answer, prayers that seem unanswered, circumstances we cannot control, and seasons we never would have chosen.
But underneath every one of them stands the same God who saved us.
So when you cannot see what He’s doing, remember what you already know about who He is.
You don’t have to understand the entire road ahead.
You only have to trust Him enough for the next step.
The righteous shall live by faith.
Helpful Daily Resources
- Read the full chapter on Bible.com ~ Romans 1
- Enjoy Bible.com ~ Verse of the Day
- Try Bible.com ~ Bible Recap: Read the Bible in a Year Plan