Consider it all joy, my brethren, when
you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces
endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect
and complete, lacking in nothing. James
1:2-4
Faith. It is the essence of a Christian’s
existence. By
faith we are saved… that is just the beginning. Faith is the way we come to know God and the
way we develop our spiritual strength and knowledge of God. The way we began is the way we continue. However, faith is not always easy. A faith test is when our concept of God and
the reality of our lives conflict and we can’t understand why something is
happening.
Faith is like a muscle and when
it’s stretched and it’s pulled then it develops. Your faith develops as it is
tested. You don’t develop your faith
just attending church once or twice a week, even throwing in a Bible study. God builds our faith by testing it. If we had really had our way, our faith would
never be tested…but God would never have the chance to prove that faith
worked. Our declarations of faith would
ring hollow. We would simply be echoing empty religious clichés learned in
church and Sunday School. No skeptic is
ever convinced or won over by that kind of false faith.
The testing of your faith is more about who God is than who we are. God’s desire is that we know Him and
experience His goodness in our lives. The
positive end of a test of faith may not be a change in circumstance but a
greater knowledge of God and His love and power in our lives. That is when faith gets hard. It’s easy to understand that God may not
answer every prayer by giving us everything we ask for. That, we can wrap our
minds around, but it is hard to realize that sometimes God’s will is that
everything stays the same for a while. Maybe
nothing changes. That’s not the answer
we want to get when we are in a difficult or painful situation. Faith becomes a fragile Paper Mache shell
when everything inside is withering away as we seek relief from a painful
situation. In those times, faith is
stretched thin, but it is there.
If you are waiting… if you are wilting and waiting… I challenge you to
drink the living water. It is hard and
exhausting, but there is a reason. If we
simply exist in our suffering, we will miss the point. What a fruitless effort to just suffer
through and completely miss what the Lord is doing because we are so focused
inward. There is something working,
something is happening. It is never His
purpose for us to understand His ways, just to understand Him. Hold fast, trust in the Lord as He is
developing and strengthening your faith.
Scripture to Claim:
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7
