After experiencing a humbling period at Laban and a break in the struggle with God, Jacob must have been surprised at how his outlook on life, on people, on God changed... When he initially left his family, he believed he knew how the world is. He understood what was important to him, what he wanted. In his eyes, the value of people was based on how they fit into his plans. He didn't have much doubt about himself. A proud, unbroken man sees it similarly. And yet, how much more blessed it is for the heart to soften in the trials that are given to us in life. As our ability to perceive expands, how much wealth we gain, for example, only through the ability to rejoice in the things that we used to pass unnoticed.

Each of us has a struggle with God on some level. We stagnate in growth until we lose it in a blessed way. In those moments, we find out that our ideas about what it means to follow God have been distorted so far.
In God's school, it's not the same as studying or being an apprentice of a craft. It won't help only to know more, try harder, overtake others, jump the bar. The key is a change in the force that pulled us forward. Instead of my own ability it means to receive Christ's spiritual power, instead of selfishness the AGAPÉ. We achieve this (similarly to Jacob) by experience, not by mere knowledge.

The struggles of faith purify us. Jacob wanted to make money on God at the beginning of his journey, he was not interested in His matter. He wanted the same blessing he had seen at his father, but for quite selfish motives. That is why he had to go to God's school for many years, where it is not a matter of study, but of a change of character. It was a difficult humiliation in his uncle's country, at the end of which a turning point awaited him - the struggle with God. At the beginning of the journey to Laban, he "took a light step"; after years he returned to his (blessed) legacy hobbling. He knew that God was stronger and that His ways led other ways than his. Since that, he has not easily chosen his own paths. Although his old nature was still evident in him, it was in a different strength and only for a while. He learned to rest under the hand of God, in the inheritance he received as a gift from God and did not need to gain it by deception.

The Hebrew word for faith is "emunah", which can be translated as "fidelity." However, it is not fidelity to tradition or commands, but an inner direction. From this conception the word is derived that I have already used for faith here, and that is "adherence". A man who has faith clings to God in his heart. He looks at things the way Gad does and walks in His ways. It is not just a belief in something (though also) and it is not just a belief in eternal life according to Romans 10:9 (though also). But in the broadest sense of the word, it is a permanent inner setting - an attachment to God.

We say that God is faithful, and so does the Scripture. But faithful to whom or what? If we have not gone through the Jacob-like struggle of faith, it will (from our point of view) seem to us that sometimes He is not - since He does not play according to our sheet music. However, if we understand the meaning of God's faithfulness, we will find that God is faithful to His character.

Faith is only possible if God is a strong point on which we can rely. But if we are completely honest, we will acknowledge that most of us have a problem with that (even if we say no). God is often incomprehensible to us. Sometimes it seems we understand his ways, perceive his closeness, but other times this is not the case. Sometimes he hears us right away, but other times he seems distant to us, and we don't even know why.

It may be encouraging that the disciples experienced exactly the same. Jesus seldom behaved as they expected, quite the opposite. It bothered and often offended them. If they had not learned the lesson of humility in his school, they would have certainly left him, he would have been unacceptable to them. At first the path of the pursuit seems to us to be "a straight one" (Pr 14,12); but later we only find out how wrong we have been in many of our judgments. The more a person knows God - and this is a lifelong process - the more he can trust him because he understands him and so he knows when and how he can rely on him. God no longer escapes us so easily.

The conditions that support the growth of faith are not external. Quite the opposite: people with the greatest faith have grown up in the most difficult conditions, while where everything is made easier, one declines easily. Therefore, the crisis of faith is inseparable from its growth, however strange it may sound. It is all too easy to confuse faith with life on a pink cloud, when we deliberately try not to see what contradicts our beliefs and run away from it. But it is the collision with reality, which we experience even as a derailment, that helps us to redefine our faith, to accept reality and to see God as He really is. If this did not happen, we would be tempted to stay on the same level. The crisis of faith will mercilessly reveal where we considered faith to be rather our own naivety. It is a painful but necessary awake.

I mentioned below that faith can perhaps best be defined as the adherence of the heart to God. It is so because a simple belief in something is not enough (Marxists, for example, are also firmly convinced), but there must be a relationship behind it. Not only do I believe in something, but there is a reason why, and it is based on a confidential relationship with a person - and the acquaintance of his. Abraham believed the more he walked with God and the more he knew Him. Therefore, it is possible to still grow in faith regardless of age, which is why the "old wine is better". But this applies only if it can mature with the age, not degrade.

 When the disciples saw the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, all the questions were irrelevant in that light. It seemed to them that from now on they would not stumble in anything, everything was clear, the experience of God's presence carried them long after. But only until they descended from God's heights into the valley of darkness to an obsessed boy from whom they could not cast out demons. Here their faith met the spiritual reality of this world. This was a spiritual crisis - when it is impossible to go any further, neither knowledge nor past experience is enough, however famous they might have been. It even seems possible to say that a spiritual crisis occurs when reality is at odds with what has worked for us so far in our pursuit of God and denies it.

 No matter where we look for the cause of our spiritual crises, it is basically always a crisis of faith. One can have many problems in life, but as long as one maintains faith, he still moves forward; when he begins to stagnate, it is not because he is lacking something from the outside, that is, he should be provided with better conditions, but because he is losing faith inside.

What is faith? It is certainly a belief in something, but it would not be enough to say that, because any fanaticism or denial of reality is a belief too. Faith, as it follows from Scripture, is the adherence of the heart to God.