Faith in what?

When George Michael begins "Faith" with the lines...

"Well I guess it would be nice, if I could touch your body, I know not everybody, has got a body like you

... you could be forgiven for thinking it's going to be a song about doubting Thomas touching Jesus' wounds and having faith in the resurrected Jesus. In fact, it turns out that it's about George just needing to drum up enough "faith" that his decision to not get (back) into a relationship is the right one. Similarly, Jon Bon Jovi just needs to "keep the faith" that his relationship will work out. The idea that "faith" is this force or substance that we need to work up in ourselves in order that things will some how work out is also present in the church. Saying "you just need to have faith" sounds like we need to convince ourselves to believe the unbelievable, to convince ourselves of something that we're really not sure about.

That idea of faith is unknown in the Bible. Yes, faith is confidence in things unseen (Hebrews 11:1), but it's not confidence in things unknown. It's not "faith" by itself. It's faith in something. Faith in Jesus.

The paralytic man's friends weren't digging through a roof because they had this thing called faith. They were doing it because they had faith in Jesus. Faith is not something you need to work up in yourself, it's a natural response to encountering the person of Jesus.