A Weak Faith
A FIGHT FOR FAITH
Most of my life I’ve had people that have been shining examples of what faith looks like in a person living in and with the presence of God. From my mother who displayed the grace of God through her unwavering compassion, my Father through his tender heart towards me and my emotions, and all the pastors I’ve had along the way. So naturally I adopted a lot of their tendencies. Yet it’s when my flesh is at its weakest and my soul is weary, I become the opposite of what I know to be true, good, and beautiful. I embody pride, arrogance, and a lack of patience for anything that doesn’t seem right in my own eyes. And if I were to be honest with you, the past few months have been a lot of that for me.
Nothing monumental or major would be said or done by me, just small habits or reactions would change from a place of understanding and care to apathy and judgement. Whether it be a sly comment underneath my breath, a side eye, or just ignoring what didn’t interest me, this had become more of the norm for my everyday life. Yet depending on who I was around, I knew exactly what to say or do to keep up the image that others had of me. But the one person I couldn’t fool was myself.
Night after night as I would lay my head down I could feel the separation from God growing by the day yet refusing to make any real change. In other words, I was beginning to lose sight of my “first love” (Rev 2:4). I’m writing this not as someone who has come over to the other side, but as someone who is currently in the midst of trying to navigate the murky waters of loving God in the face of trials and uncertainty for the future.
So may these words bring you encouragement, delight, and a sense of reality for what life with God is like not just in the light when things are easy, but when it seemingly looks like there’s no progress being made and distance seems to only grow everyday. Blessings.
FIGHT AGAINST THE FLESH
My natural reaction to disorder and chaos in my life is to start a to-do list, make sure I’m doing the good and right, and start from there. For me it looks like reading books I love, praying set times in the day, breaking from social media once a week for 24 hours, and having a day where my body gets to catch up to my soul. So as each day passed that felt like I was drifting from God, I would do these things. Yet they weren’t having the same effects as they once did. I would typically do this in a week and feel myself start to unwind and relax into the goodness of God, yet it didn’t quite work anymore, so I was stuck.
So I slowly started to stop creating habits and rhythms into my life just to see where the journey would take me and the journey quickly became dark. My familiarity with God began to dwindle down from having joyful conversations with God to timidly approaching Him because of fear and shame. Yet in the middle of this happening I would feel the Spirit of God calling me back. The Spirit would remind me of scriptures, remind me of the things I love about God, what he’s done in my life, and some days I would feed my soul begin to brighten while other days the darkness of sin would begin to loom over me.
Realizing where I was at in my faith was hard, but I knew that knowledge alone wouldn’t be enough to bring me out of this rut. So I ventured out to see what the wisdom of other believers had and I was amazed by the simplicity. In my mind I believed that in order to be with God it had to be an in-depth study of the Bible, a study of doctrine, or deep meditative prayer, yet I began to see that it was in the simple things of life I began to ignore.
The beauty of a rose reminded me of God’s gentleness towards us. The waves of the sea reminded me of the grandeur of God. Walks in the park reminded me of the rest found in God. And conversations over a home cooked meal with loved ones reminded me that with God is life and life to the full.
May you remember that God is with you at this very moment. God is calling you to holiness, obedience, and submission not to steal your joy but to give it to you in full with a peace that surpasses all understanding.
LIVING IN THE SPIRIT
A life with God is only possible in and with God. In other words, you and I are not capable of living a life for God without being a paper of it every step of the way. In the stages of my return back to God a few things grounded me in the process. Ironically enough the very things that I previously left were the same things that helped me grasp onto the kindness of God.
When prayer became a part of my life again, it was as if I was able to breathe for the first time again. To know that God would listen to me right where I was with a love only He could give, with a grace only He could provide, and to be able to live in the presence of God in every moment had become real again.
Reading the scriptures revealed who God was and not just what I imagined him to be. The faithfulness of God shown through sustaining the people of Israel in the wilderness, the mercy of God shown by giving us His word to illuminate our eyes and enliven our souls to the truth of God, the creativity of God by using a man who went from persecuting christians to being one of the biggest influences to spreading the Gospel across the globe.
Living with God is what changed my life. Trials come, hardships persist, but God Has remained by my side every step of the way. Friend, I can promise you that trusting in God is the true and beautiful path to follow. Blessings.
PRAYER
God, do you love me? My path is crooked and I feel more distant than ever so one question keeps circling back in my mind, do you still love me? I don’t read my bible like I used to, I don’t pray as often, so God will you still be near me? I know in my mind the answer is yes, but would you reveal that to me in a new and fresh way today? I don’t promise perfection, God, but I do promise that I will live as best I can to honor you, glorify you, and love you in all my ways. It’s to your Holy name that I pray, amen.