In Ephesians 1:15-21, the apostle Paul gives keen insight into his prayer life:

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and the is incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

I had a conversation with someone recently, who as we were discussing the faith of Peter when he grabbed a totally crippled man by the hand and raised him up, declared “I wish I had more faith”. The preceding passage came to my mind immediately. I find it interesting that Paul didn’t pray for the believers in Ephesus to have more faith. Rather, he prayed that God would open the eyes of their heart. He says elsewhere that “we walk by faith and not by sight”.

In 2Kings 6:15-17, Elisha’s servant is literally freaking out as a great enemy army encircled the city where they were staying. Like Paul, Elisha didn’t pray “Oh Lord give him more faith”. Instead, he prayed “open his eyes”, and the servant was able see into the spiritual realm (i.e. the REAL reality) and the vast superiority of the heavenly armies. Sometimes I think we mistakenly see faith in terms of quantity — something we either have a lot of or a little of, and we wish we had more. I think faith is a by-product of having the eyes of our heart opened to “see” the heavenly realities. Faith came easy to Elisha’s servant once his eyes were opened. Jesus himself said “if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you”. Clearly here Jesus is saying it is not about quantity, as a mustard seed is the tiniest of all seeds.

I think our problem is that we are looking at situations with the WRONG SET OF EYES. As Pastor Duke says, we need to be “seer throughers, not looker at’ers”. May the eyes of your heart be enlightened to see into the realities of the spiritual realm, which are far more real and lasting than what we see with our natural eyes. I think this may be one very important key to increased faith.