When Jennifer Michelle Greenberg walked into the kitchen to see her eight-year-old daughter preparing to remove a piping hot casserole from the oven, she did what most parents would do: yelled, “Stop!”

The problem, of course, wasn’t her daughter’s courage in trying to help with dinner. The problem was that no matter how up-to-the-task she felt, the little girl wasn’t equipped to do the job.

In “O Ye of Overconfident Faith,” Greenberg likens this story to the account recorded in Matthew 7. This passage describes Jesus’ disciples trying to cast a demon out of a little boy. When they are unsuccessful and ask Jesus why they couldn’t drive it out, He replies, “Because you have so little faith.”

Greenberg notes that Jesus didn’t say the disciples had no faith, but “little faith.” Rather than recognizing their need for Jesus in the face of an unrelenting demon, the disciples tried to conjure more of their courage and strength. Like Greenberg’s daughter, in their ambition, they forgot their limitations and need for help.

“Faith isn’t fearlessness, and it isn’t courage,” writes Greenberg. “It’s a work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”

As we encounter challenges in our lives, may we do so not with cockiness but with humble courage.