What is the Difference Between Faith and Trust?

What is the difference between faith and trust?

Seriously, can you give a legitimate answer? Anytime I’ve asked this, or have been asked this by others, the answer is basically the same for each.

Over a year ago I was in a counseling session where the counselor asked what I thought was the difference is between faith and trust. I gave the answer that would be common for most people, with little variance in between the two. He went on to explain that faith is the long distance hope, while trust is the short run of belief in God. This helped a lot at the time, but has been something I’ve been chewing on since then.

It came to me a couple days ago while mowing the grass. Speaking in monetary terms to illustrate; Faith is the fortune and trust is an individual transaction from that account.

You may have $2000 in a savings account but that doesn’t define each transaction out of that account. Faith is the abstract, and trust is the concrete. Faith would be what the bank says, or your own records say, is in your account, and trust is the $200 you withdrew from the ATM for a specific purchase.

God gives us faith to believe as we see in Ephesians 2:8-9.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves (speaking of faith as the gift), it’s a gift from God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

We are to respond to God with the measure of faith we’ve been given, which is different for every person, and we must trust him transactionally, out of the fortune of faith that God has given us, to provide for everything we need on a daily basis.

Here’s an example:

Out of the fortune of faith that God has given me, I trust him daily to live his life through me, for His glory and the good of others.

The difference between our faith and bank account is that is we can log on anytime to see if we have enough funds to make a purchase. The difficulty in the faith account is we never know how much we have in it. There’s not an app to download but rest assured that God keeps our records. If you have to spend (trust) against the faith account but you don’t feel like you have enough to cover it, ask of God who gives to all men liberally without reproach (James 1:5).

More faith can be given just by asking for it. Just make sure you know what you’re asking for and check your heart to see whether or not you’re asking for the right reason. If no one else beyond yourself benefits from this request for more, you may not get it. Requests for more faith that don’t come cloaked in self-interest are typically answered more often and favorably.

James‬ ‭4:3‬ says, “You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your evil desires.”

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