How far does grace extend? Is our faith important?

(I've asked this question & had it answered before but i think its worth posting.)

We've all been taught that there's grace for things we fail at,

but it always sounds as though-you can only obtain this grace if you actively kind of apply it to your situation/believe there's grace... in other words it seems like you need to have faith for grace to FLOW.

but the trouble comes, when you find, you have no faith! and the thing you need grace for, is faith itself! (and i think we all do. LOL.)

but since you have no faith, u cant have grace, and since u cant have grace, you cant have faith, you're essentially stuck in a rut.

The bigger qn underlying it i think, is, is faith as we normally hear about it really that important?