Faith above and beyond

". . . to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit . . ." (1 Corinthians 12:9)

Paul lists various special gifts given to believers by the Spirit. I am at first surprised to see "faith" in that list. Isn't faith something we all have as Christians? Is that not the very definition of a Christian, that we trust in God? Evidently there is a special gift of faith that is above and beyond the norm.

We know from the passage that the sundry gifts are given to individuals for the profit of all (v.7). But today my attention is arrested by the gift of faith that is a super-additive to the run-of-the-mill faith of all believers. My question is, what does a person look like who has this "gift" of faith? Who are the people I have seen and know who have it? I think I can tell you: They are the folks who like to remind you of all the verses in the Bible that encourage you to expect miracles. They are folks like my friend Bubba in a Texas prison.

A few years ago Bubba offered to send a letter to my incarcerated son to encourage him to turn to God. The letter was returned, stamped "No prison-to-prison mail." I said to Bubba, "Oh well, we tried." He wrote back saying we must keep trying because "No weapon formed against you shall prosper." I thought, "Yeah, right. Religious fanatic here."

Then I sat at the keyboard and, for kicks, typed out Bubba's letter. Now what you need to know is that my columns for the print edition of WORLD are supposed to be 700 words long. But, of course, it's impossible to do that-I get away with anything between 690 and 740. Well, when I finished transcribing Bubba's letter to my son I reflexively checked the word count and it said "7-0-0." Whoa, I thought. Then I said to myself, even if it's against the rules to send my son another inmate's letter, it is not against the rules to send him a magazine. So I sent it in to my editors at WORLD and they used it instead of my regular column, and my son read it all the way in West Virginia. (See "Letter from prison," Feb. 3, 2007.)

I guess the "gift of faith" is just unquenchable optimism in God. And it has profit for all because it lifts up our sagging faith whenever we see great faith in someone else. I'll bet you if I ask the Lord, he will give me that gift too (1 Corinthians 14:1).

Listen to commentaries by Andrée Seu.