the basis of faith

What is the basis of your faith?  If you believe in God, why?  If you trust in God, why?  Is the reasoning you tell yourself or others the real reason?  Do you know?

I have thought long and hard about this a lot over the last few years.  I hear people talk about trusting in God because He has cared for them in difficult times.  What if God appeared to disappear and times got harder?  I have heard people point to specific scientific or philosophical rationales for God's existence or care.  What if those rationales were disproved?  I have heard people refer to past miraculous experiences as the basis for their faith, but what if those experiences were proved to be hoaxes or the product of people in suggestible conditions?

I will say that if there is a physical rationale that I personally give for my belief and trust in God it is that Scripture's description of our sinful natures explains humanity to me better than anything else, and every study that I hear on human nature reaffirms my view that we are deeply-flawed, selfish beings who have to resort to vanity and pride in order to behave well.  We are in dire need of a savior if there really are such things as holiness and judgment.  This is probably not the proper basis of my faith, though.

My earlier questions are important for a few reasons.  First, perspectives change as we age.  We see the foolishness in past opinions and approaches.  What is a basis of faith now may be a reason for abandoning the faith later in life.  Second, and much more important, is faith that is dependent on some earthly thing really the sort of faith that Scripture talks about?  I don't think it is.

Any person who has been to more than a handful of church services in his or her life will at some point have heard a sermon on the Hebrews 11 hall of faith.  Apart from Gideon, who it may be argued based his faith on water and wool, everyone else listed in the chapter believed in God and trusted Him just because.

For a long while I did not think there was such a thing as blind faith.  If God was God, I reasoned, we would not be able to look far before He was obvious.  I have somewhat flipped my thinking on that now, though.  I now believe that faith is a gift from God in that He is obvious on some level to those He gifts with faith.  He is not obvious to those who either are not looking for the real Him, or to those to whom He has not revealed Himself. I don't think that this obviousness is available in any other way than as something He bestows on us.  I think this faith from God is sturdy enough to withstand the doubts that other forms of "faith" ultimately lead to.

This all is not a philosophy that I am entirely comfortable with.  I like to be in control, and this cedes control to God.  This also opens me to the possibility of looking stupid because I am following something other than my ability to reason.  I can't generate the faith I need by rationalizing why God is real, trustworthy, or good, because my human rationalizations will eventually lead to making it appear that God is not any of those things.  But how does one go about asking for faith from another, or rather The Other?  Do I really want to go through the things that create and strengthen true faith?  How do I know the faith I have is not a delusion?