"Cheese, please?"

"Cheese! Cheese, me? Cheese, me, please?"

It may sound like a line from a Dr. Seuss book but it is actually the daily verbiage of my two, almost three, year old sister. A girl after my own heart she enjoys a good hunk of cheese as an appetizer before dinner. In fact, if she hears us in the kitchen, she will begin her pleading for cheese before she even reaches that room. Down the hall she comes chanting, "Cheese, Nan!"

The other day I was slightly irritated, okay perhaps just plain irritated, at how she constantly seems to repeat the cheese question until she actually receives her piece. I can even have said, "Yes, Grace, I will give you a piece of cheese", and she will still keep on asking for it.

I said to Mom, "Doesn't she believe us? Doesn't she know that when we say we will give her cheese, she will receive it?" In a calm, cool, and collected way, Mom replied, "We do the same thing to God."

Musing upon this, I realized that nothing could be closer to the truth. We beg, plead, pray that God will give us what we need and yet we don't always trust that he will actually give it to us. I've feared I haven't had enough faith. What if I die and find out that whoops I just didn't believe hard enough?

For starters, that's not how Christianity works. We don't will ourselves into Heaven. Faith is not something that I can conjure up on my own and it is not based upon the mood of the moment. Sometimes this is a whole lot easier to say than to believe which is where faith comes into play.

Moreover, God promises that he will supply the faith we need. From him come the desire to do his good will and pleasure. "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24). "God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful" (1 Corinthians 1:9). "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

Yet on a daily bases, I struggle to trust that God will do what he says he will do in his Word. Mercifully, he does not treat me as my doubt deserves. He, instead, is more like my mom. Grace is continually asking for her aged dairy even though she has been guaranteed a piece. Mom continually tells her yes, and hands her a chunk of cheese.