The author here provides a description, not a definition, of how faith works. Faith is the conviction based on past experience that God's new and fresh surprises will surely be ours. These two qualities need a secure beginning and ending point. The beginning point of faith is believing in God's character, he is who he says. The end point is believing in God's promises, he will do what he says.
Faith is established conviction regarding things unseen and grounded expectation of things to come.
The basic idea is that faith is the title deed of things hoped for. Our assurance rests on God's promises, His reality. We look for God in the miraculous realm and we never realize that all the time God is in the most common things around us. One of the most startling revelations comes when we ask God to open our eyes so that we can see him in the common things of everyday life. This is when we begin to see Christ revealed and learn to discern the true reality of things.