Do you remember the strength tests they used to have at carnivals and county fairs, the ones that looked like a big thermometer with a bell at the top? The whole idea was to see how hard you could hit the thing with a sledgehammer. If you were really strong, you could hit it, make the bell ring, and claim your prize. On the other hand, if you were not as strong and the bell failed to ring—well, better luck next time!

One of the mistakes I think Christians sometimes make is to believe that faith works along the same lines. In other words, if you get sick, or you are in trouble, or life isn’t going smoothly for you, it must be because your faith is weak. Therefore, you need to pray harder and believe more fervently. Flex your spiritual muscles and ring the bell. Impress God with the strength of your faith and claim a miracle as your prize!

I’m not sure where people get this idea, but it’s not from the Bible. Take the story of Job, for example. Job is a man who was “blameless and upright” before God. He is a pillar of faith—so much so that the Almighty even points him out to Satan. “Consider the exemplary behavior of my servant Job,” says God. “There is no one like him in all the earth.”

And yet, in the span of seven verses, Job loses everything. His livestock are either stolen or killed, his children are wiped out by a sudden tornado, and he develops painful sores all over his body. Is this because he lacked faith? Hardly. The Bible tells us that “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with any wrongdoing.”

Consider the Apostle Paul. He was tormented by a mysterious malady—“a thorn in the flesh,” as he put it. He prays repeatedly to God for a miracle; but the thorn remains. Is this because he wasn’t praying hard enough, or long enough, or eloquently enough? I don’t think so. Even Paul concluded that, while God did not remove the thorn, God did give him the strength to deal with it.

Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was arrested. He, too, prays for a miracle; and mind you, he prays with such passion that he sweats blood. “All things are possible, Father. Remove this cup from me.” Only every time he opens his eyes, the cup is still there. Is this because Jesus was a spiritual weakling? By no means. Is it because God doesn’t care? Of course not.

The bottom line is that each of these individuals continues to believe in God, even when the miracles they have prayed for fail to materialize. Faith is not about flexing our piety and collecting the prize. Faith is about trusting in God, no matter what.

I don’t expect any of us to stop praying for miracles. Frankly, the world needs all the miracles it can get. But maybe it’s time to stop thinking that miracles are contingent on the strength of our faith and the fervency of our prayers. After all, it’s God that produces miracles, not us. Our job is to keep trusting and believing, regardless of the outcome. The rest is up to God!