The word 'faith' is often misused to mean a 'vague and largely unprovable belief'. It gives rise to a rather bizarre image of somebody sitting, with a rather strained appearance on their face which is largely indistinguishable from a bout of constipation."I AM going to believe in the impossible."
Sadly, this sort of faith tends to avoid all rational thinking and logic and is a fairly natural consequence of a cultural desire to believe in something for which you have no empirical evidence. It is shallow and devoid of anything other than a facade of alleged spirituality. It is also temporary.
Fortunately, Christianity does not have any such problem as it is all about an actual relationship between man and his Creator.
Certainly Christianity requires a leap into the unknown named as a 'step of faith'. This will only be attempted when somebody has seen the attractions of the Christ and is prepared to take a risk in committing their life to Him.
When that has been done you experience the Living Lord and so 'straining faith' is no longer needed. Keeping Him close through prayer and worship and reading His word and His reality will remain with you.
Believing in the existence of God is not what faith is about - even the demons believe in His existence.
Like the leper in Mark 1. He had a belief that Jesus was for real and could help him. This is believing faith - in many ways the same as knowledge. [Check out Hebrews 11 on the matter.] Of course, the leper did not know whether Jesus would heal him or not and had to ask.
You cannot be a Christian without knowing Jesus. Anything else and all He becomes is a mere opinion.
