This week I have had the opportunity to watch Josie and Alexander compete in their respective schools’ swimming sports. Cheering them on, as they kicked madly through the water, it brought back memories of earlier days when they weren’t so confident and to leave the safety of the poolside was a big step to take. It was a leap into the deep; and though they had seen what learning to swim could achieve, the joy it brought to others, it still took trust. They had to trust the person calling them forth, and they had to trust themselves. For without trust, without faith, they would never have left the familiar.
This idea of leaping into the deep, stepping out into the unknown, comes up time and again in conversations about religious faith. It is one of the themes of this year’s Lenten studies. On Wednesday, having shared with each other aspects of our faith journeys, we noted how for many people faith and belief are not the same. For, whereas belief is often understood as an adherence to a set of doctrines or teachings, faith is all about trust in the other. It is about taking a deep breath and pushing off from the side of the pool, and we do this because we have put our trust in the one who calls us to ‘come’.
But there is another side to faith. One participant on Wednesday night brought it to our attention. Having read the story of Jesus’ call of the first disciples, he remarked how this account is not simply about the faith of Andrew or Simon or any of the others; it is also about Jesus’ faith in them. Here was an ordinary group of men, and he saw in them the extraordinary. He knew what they could be. They may not have been the quickest of learners, our gospel makes that clear, but Jesus’ faith in them made the difference. 
The Bible, of course, is full of stories about people of faith. I have just mentioned the story of the call of the first disciples. But it is not the only one in the gospels. There are many others, such as the woman who had suffered from haemorrhages for twelve years and the woman whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit. And elsewhere in the New Testament there is Paul and his readiness to risk all for the sake of the gospel. But the greatest example has to be Abraham. Paul mentions ‘the faith of Abraham’ in today’s epistle. And in our Old Testament reading we catch a snippet of his story.
Abraham first appears in the book of Genesis. We read in chapter 12 how God called him to leave his home and his family and go to a place he did not know. God also said ‘I will make you a great nation’. So Abraham went. He was seventy five at the time and he and Sarah were childless. One can imagine them walking off into the sunset, a sparkle in their eyes, but it was to no avail. For five chapters and twenty fours years later, the situation was no different. The promised progeny hadn’t arrived, and a more pragmatic person would have given up hope; but not Abraham. He continued to put his faith in God. He continued to believe in the impossible, for God’s word was to be trusted.
Now, I think if we are honest, few of us have the faith of Abraham. Filled with doubts and questions unanswered, we stick with what we know, the safety of the side of our pools of life, and even if we do let go of the rails, as faith eventually demands of us, we do not go far, out of fear of the unknown, and so we miss out on the joys of the deep.
This is why we can not neglect our faith, or take it for granted. For just as a child, if they are to know the joys of swimming, must continue to get into the water and put into practice what they have seen and heard; the same is true for us. We have to learn to breathe. We have to learn to kick. We have to learn some basic strokes to keep us moving forward. And because faith is not a set of beliefs but a relationship, as with any relationship, if we want our relationship with God to grow, it deserves our attention.
So what can we do to increase our faith in God?
It is a timely question as we journey through these days of Lent, and I suggest it is a good old Lenten lesson that offers us a way forward – create the space to pray.
Now, I have spoken about prayer in recent weeks. I have described prayer as learning to be attentive; attentive to the world around us, to the people we meet, and to our acts of worship. But it is also about being attentive to ourselves; a going within, seeking to become more attuned with our interior worlds, that we may know who we truly are.
The motto of our day tells us self is central. ‘Galileo was wrong,’ says one t-shirt, ‘I am the centre of the universe.’ And Jesus’ words can seem out of date. What does he mean when he says ‘leave your self behind’? It is not a phrase that is going to sell many books; and perhaps rightly so. We should be in the business of affirming the self, not negating it; there is too much of that already. But this is to miss Jesus’ point altogether. For Jesus knows our tendency to create an image of who we are that is false. Our true self, as the Danish philosophy Soren Kierkegaard says, is only found in a relationship with God.
Hence, the self Jesus tells us to leave behind is not our true identity as the beloved of God, but the self we seek to create. And if only we would make the space in our lives to breathe in God’s life, we would learn to have faith in the God who calls us into being.
So my prayer for you this Lent is that this may be a time where your faith is enlarged. And hearing God calling you from the deep, you may trust that voice, for it has put its trust in you, and letting go of the poolside, the places of certainty and comfort, you may experience the freedom and the joy of swimming in the depths of God’s presence.
Take a breath. Trust God’s voice. Become who you truly are.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on Sunday 8 March 2009, by the Ven. Damon Plimmer.