Please forgive this lengthy post written many years ago that many of you have probably read. It is a transcription of a spoken word, hence, the sometimes-awkward relay. It has helped me understand the 'first dimension' to faith, to borrow Episkopis's words ...
[italics bold mine].
The Most Difficult Thing in the World
by T. Austin-Sparks
I am going to speak for a little while on the most difficult thing in the world, that is,
faith. So far as the Lord's people are concerned, it can be truly said that the whole of their life in every aspect - salvation in its first step and every subsequent step, spiritual growth, spiritual sustenance, spiritual victory, spiritual work and service, fellowship with the Lord and ultimate glory is all resolved into one thing and that one thing is
faith. Faith is the key to everything in our relationship to the Lord. It is all just a question of
faith - not
faith as something in itself, but
faith in God. That is something which has to be faced and as far as possible at any point, settled; but it is not a thing which is settled once and for all. There has to be a settlement made again and again on this point.
We are really continually confronted with this question; in the presence of new situations and trials and perplexities and seeming contradictions, am I going to believe God or not, am I going to repose
faith in Him or not, am I going to
trust the Lord or not?
That is true all the way along, and it always will be so. And sometimes those testings are very, very acute and severe. A brother wrote to me this week, one who has been greatly used of the Lord in other lands as well as in this one, who knows the Lord, and has a very real walk with the Lord, and he just put this in his letter. "It sometimes seems as though the Lord is a thousand miles away and has no interest whatever in me. It sometimes seems as though He has just cut me off". You may think that is very extreme, but some of you will not. You know quite well that such experiences are true to the life of a child of God. I was saying that this is something that has to be faced. That is the life to which we are called. The Lord has not covered it, has not veiled it, hidden it from us. We are called unto
a life of faith, and we had better face it; and then we must, as far as possible, if we are going to get through, settle it, for I repeat there is no step or stage or aspect of the life of the child of God from first to last, from the beginning to the end that is not a matter of
faith. Well, that is a fact, and let us be quite honest about it, and quite frank with ourselves. That is the situation. It will help to a very large extent if we have looked this thing straight in the face and not shelved it, not tried to evade it, but accepted it.