2Co 4:1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.
Gal 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
There is a saying which is readily understood. Blessed are those that expect no gratitude for they shall not be disappointed. This very day you are frustrated at the length of your journey, on waiting for God patiently, by the demands of others, and also the lack of recognition and thanks of others as you serve God.
You are ready to faint at the steepness and severity of the Way. You may have said to God recently, "Why do I bother?" Whoa! Banish that thought. God does want to reason with you, but not if you are listening to the devil impregnate you with doubt, fear and hopelessness.
God's plan is for you to grow up spiritually. God wants to enlarge your faith and encourages you to develop a closer relationship with Him. Just because you cannot see all He is doing in the background, on your behalf does not mean that delay means denial.
When you doubt as you do, you are putting your spirit in peril. You are hindering God as He must take you back to your 101 trust lessons. You are in the classroom again doing a make-up test, and you shall take it over and over again until you get a passing score and your spirit is enriched by this waiting time. God is not absent when you see no way out of your problems. He is there, but it is you that have moved away.
Go back to His inner circle of friendship. Recall the exhilaration of the day you accepted Christ Jesus as your personal Savior. Remember the weight of sin and burden lifted from you as you eagerly decided to follow Him despite the cost.
Nothing that is happening to you is uncommon to mankind. Often the things we cherish most become so commonplace we forget to appreciate them. Examine your faith today. Ask God to not only revive it but to enlarge it. Let Him pour out the blessing He is holding in store in heaven for you. You will receive it if you faint not!
Someone needs to light their candle from your flame of faith today. A pinch of praise is worth a pound of scorn. Tend to your ministry by letting your charity abound toward others and God will meet your every need. Ask the Holy Spirit to pass you the smelling salts and be ready to mount up on wings of an eagle once more.
Posted: May 10, 08 5:40am
God does want to reason with you, but not if you are listening to the devil impregnate you with doubt, fear and hopelessness.
Sorry, this sounds way too rah-rah for me. Doubt, fear and hopelessness are often experiences through which God strips away our legalism, performance orientation, shallowness and attempts to manipulate Him into doing our will by getting all our ducks in a row. When we fall down, when we come to the end of our own strength and are desperately hungry for His mercy, that is when our faith is at its most real. Pain has shredded all the extraneous bits and false fronts we love to erect over our faith lest it be seen as lesser than someone else's.
I humbly submit if your faith hasn't gone through periods of doubt, if you've never been angry at God or disappointed in Him, even tempted to walk away from faith, then your faith hasn't been tested and is still immature. It's still valid, it just isn't very deep.
When we doubt His goodness, when we fear that this is all a con job, and feel hopelessly trapped in whatever mire we're stuck in, that's when we come to an end of our own strength and resolve, which is entirely a good thing. This is when we give up. Once we give up, then there's room for God to operate freely because our interfering hands have been knocked away.
The Christian life is joy, but a close second is pain. As your faith progresses, the easy victories, the sureties, easy answers, the slam-dunks fade away. When I look at the lives of people close to God (certainly closer than I am) I see pain in large measure. Business losses and bankruptcies, addiction, family strife, stress and disappointment at work, betrayal or attacks by fellow believers, financial woes, health crises, emotional and psychological issues. Often God intervenes dramatically, but that seems the exception, not the rule.
So what keeps us going? Why pursue the Christian faith? Because underneath all that crap, true joy is found. Look at Paul's life. As he matured in his faith, he endured greater and greater suffering and persecution. Are we any different?
Where does this pain come from? We live in a fallen world, our own humanity gives us pain where the world and heaven collide in us.
The kingdom of darkness uses doubt, fear and hopelessness to eradicate a believer's faith, yet God--being greater--uses the tools of the enemy to accomplish His own goals.
But it's a painful, drawn-out process that is absolutely unromantic. No one will envy you in this situation. Most believers won't understand what's happening and will accuse you of insufficient faith or of harboring unconfessed sin, or some other bonehead bit of legalism and performance.
These situations can last years, decades, an entire life. This is something that's not popular from the pulpit so you won't much hear it, yet so many believers go through this "dark night of the soul." This is when your pain forces you to cast aside your pride and cry out to God in despair and desperation, knowing He's the only one who can redeem you from this suffering.
Posted: May 10, 08 5:57am
Ken, thank you so much for speaking out. I find what you perceive and have experienced close to my own experiences.
I didn't want so much "rah rah" as to rally the troops in Christ's Army.
Would it be all right if I add this?
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake" (Matthew 5:11).
Expect misunderstanding. Expect persecution. Expect ridicule. Expect mistreatment. Expect suffering. Expect rejection. Then, you won't be surprised when it comes.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.