Does Faith Really Change Things?

I have a friend that I only get to talk to about once a month.

I met him about four years ago in a place called Rock Road—you might know it as the St. Lucie County Jail. We’ll call him J.

J had requested one-on-one spiritual care, and the chaplain asked if I would be willing to meet with him. He was awaiting trial for a pretty serious crime. And as we began to talk, it didn’t take long for the conversation to move toward faith… and how his faith was intersecting with his situation.

And honestly—it was hard.

He had a wife who didn’t want to talk to him. Two little kids about the age of my kids that he wasn’t allowed to speak to. Everything about his life felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

And he would say things like, “I trust God. I have faith that it’s all going to work out.”

But the more we talked, the more I realized what he meant.

What he meant was—he had faith that somehow, some way, his case would get dismissed. That there would be some loophole, some legal technicality, some kind of moment where everything would just… go away.

And if we’re honest, that’s how many of us understand faith.

Faith means this has to work out. Faith means this has to change. Faith means this can’t end like this.

And underneath all of that is a quieter question we don’t always say out loud:

If it doesn’t change… does that mean I didn’t have enough faith?

Because most of us don’t just believe in faith.

We measure it.

If it works, faith worked. If it doesn’t, something must have been missing.

And over time, that way of thinking does something to us. It makes us second guess our prayers. It makes us wonder if we’re doing it right. It adds a layer of pressure—and sometimes even guilt—to situations that are already painful.

So the question we’re asking today isn’t abstract.

It’s deeply personal:

Does faith really change things?

I want to take us to Mark’s Gospel to read a story that often is used to answer this question with an obvious “YES!”

Mark 5:25–34 NRSV

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Ok so here’s the deal. There’s a woman who has been suffering for twelve years. Twelve years of pain. Twelve years of searching for healing. Twelve years of spending everything she has, only to find that nothing has worked.

And in her world, this isn’t just physical. She is considered unclean, which means she’s been pushed to the margins of society—cut off from community, from normal life, from the everyday rhythms most people take for granted. She’s living with both physical suffering and social isolation.

And then she hears about Jesus.

And what she does is so simple it’s almost easy to miss.

She reaches.

“If I can just touch his clothes…”

And she does.

And immediately—she’s healed.

It’s the kind of story we love, because it fits the equation we’ve come to expect.

Faith leads to healing. Trust leads to breakthrough.

Yes—faith changes things.

But Jesus doesn’t let the moment end there.

He turns. He stops. He looks for her. He draws her out of the crowd and brings her into the open. And then he says something that deepens the moment far beyond the healing itself:

“Daughter… your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

And in that moment, something more is happening than we might first realize.

When Jesus says, “your faith has made you well,” he uses a word that doesn’t just mean physical healing. It’s a word that means saved, restored, made whole. And then he adds, almost as a second layer, “be healed of your disease.”

In other words, Jesus is not simply repeating himself. He’s expanding the meaning.

Yes, her body is healed—but that’s not the whole story.

He calls her Daughter. He restores her identity. He brings her back into relationship. He publicly affirms her belonging.

The miracle isn’t just that her body is healed.

It’s that her whole life is being restored. And that’s the most important thing here. Jesus is not immediately connecting her physical healing to her faith — he’s first concerned with her spiritual, emotional, and social “wellness.”

Yes, she does experience physical healing — and that is wonderful, but not every story unfolds like that one.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Paul speaks about something in his own life that he desperately wants gone. He calls it a “thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know this—it hurts, it limits him, and it stays with him.

Here’s those words:

2 Corinthians 12:6–10 NRSV

But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

What exactly Paul is referring to no one is really sure. It could be a physical ailment, or he could be using figurative language when talking about this thorn. Either way, its not a good time for him so he prays that God will remove it.

Not casually. Not once.

He says, “I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me.”

He pleads.

And it doesn’t go away.

So now we’re holding two stories side by side.

One reaches—and is healed. One pleads—and is not.

Same God. Same faith language.

Different outcomes.

One could honestly argue that at this point Paul has got a much longer track record of displaying and living out “faith” than the woman Jesus heals. So what gives?

Suddenly, the equation we’ve been using to understand faith begins to break down.

Because if faith is about getting results, then one of these stories doesn’t make sense.

This is where we have to slow down and listen more carefully to what Scripture is actually telling us.

Because the word we translate as “faith” is the Greek word pistis.

And pistis doesn’t mean believing hard enough or feeling certain enough.

It means trust. It means allegiance. It means placing your life into the hands of another.

Faith is not a tool we use to control outcomes. It’s fundamentally the opposite of that mentality.

It is a relationship we enter into with a person.

When Paul pleads with God, God does respond—but not in the way Paul hoped.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

The thorn remains.

But something else begins to change.

Paul’s understanding of strength shifts. His dependence deepens. His life becomes a witness to a different kind of power—not the power that removes weakness, but the power that meets us in it.

And if we look to Jesus himself, we see this even more clearly.

In Luke 22:39–46, Jesus is in the garden, soon to face the cross and is overwhelmed with grief, praying with everything he has:

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”

It is a clear, honest prayer. A real desire.

And then:

“Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

No one has more faith than Jesus.

And the cross still comes.

Because faith is not about avoiding suffering.

It is about aligning our lives with the purposes of God—even when the path is difficult. And this is what I’ve learned from my friend J.

Over time, something began to shift in J.

It didn’t happen all at once. It wasn’t easy. But slowly, his focus began to move.

From:

“This has to go away…”

To:

“What might God do in me… even if it doesn’t?”

And eventually, his case didn’t get dismissed.

He was sentenced. He’s now in state prison for twenty years.

That outcome didn’t change.

But J did.

Now when I talk to him, he tells me about the men he’s walking with. The conversations he’s having. The ways he’s become a safe place for people who are searching for God.

He’s taking theological courses. He’s growing. He’s leading people to life changing relationships with Jesus.

And he’s told me more than once, “I don’t think I would have ever let God use me like this if I was on the outside.”

His relationship with his wife is slowly improving. There’s movement with his kids.

Not everything is restored.

But something real is happening.

He has found wellness in Christ.

So does faith change things?

Yes.

But not because God is a cosmic genie who rewards devotion with the outcomes we want.

Faith changes things because God changes us when we open our hearts to him.

And as God changes us, our lives begin to participate in God’s purposes in the world.

Some of you are living in Mark 5 right now.

And some of you are living in 2 Corinthians 12.

And the invitation is the same in both places.

Not to believe harder. Not to force an outcome.

But to trust.

To place your life—your hopes, your fears, your unanswered prayers—into the hands of Jesus.

Because faith doesn’t always change what you’re walking through…

…but it will always change what God can do in you as walk through it.

It can change what you allow God to do through you. All you have to do is surrender and let him do it.