When I was young and foolish (as opposed to now being older and... hopefully less foolish), I had a friend who convinced me to start lifting weights with him at a
local gym. Now my friend was a pretty fit young man, and I was, shall we say… a
couch potato. I went with him exactly one time – it was a grueling workout for
me, and I remember being barely able to lift my arms for three days afterwards.
Not surprisingly, I declined any further invitations to return to the gym.
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| © Elena Zidkova | Dreamstime Stock Photos |
Let’s revisit one of the definitions of faith from earlier
in this series:
4) the
theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of
God’s will.
It is a necessary assumption that a Christian believes
in the existence of God. What is less certain is whether or not we feel safe
and secure when we encounter hardships – times when we really have to trust God
to come through for us. It’s this trusting acceptance of God’s will that many
of us, even mature and seasoned Christians, find so elusive. How can we learn
to trust God more fully?
Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands.
~ Deuteronomy 7:9 (NLT)
Perhaps the greatest test (and proof) of faith is
obedience. As I have said before,
we do what we believe. Every time we step up and obey God’s will in our lives, we
are practicing and strengthening our faith. "Flexing our spiritual muscle," one might say. Each act of obedience builds our
fellowship with God, and we find a greater sense of security beneath the shadow
of His wings with each step of faith.
Today, you may be one of many Christians who believe
in God but are still troubled greatly by the worries of life. You may be facing
problems which seem impossible to handle. You may even have some unresolved sin
in your life which you desperately want to be rid of, yet you are unable to
break the chains which bind you.
With the great problems you may be facing, it is all
too easy to feel overwhelmed. There is a strong temptation to just throw in the
towel and give up. It is very sad to realize that many do indeed fall away at
this point, and many times our churches add to the pressure by criticizing and
ridiculing those who have not yet conquered an apparent sin which plagues them.
We would all do well to note that sanctification (the purifying process which
we all undergo after salvation) is not instantaneous. It takes time, patience,
and practice. Common sense and simple logic should tell us that large problems
take longer to fix, but because they are large (and often embarrassingly obvious),
we tend to expend great amounts of energy toward solving the big problems.
And many have burned out in the process.
Why is that? Doesn’t
God step in to help? Doesn’t a failure in this way reveal that our faith was
fake? That perhaps our declaration of faith was a sham?
Not so! An immature Christian (and let’s be real, one
can remain immature after becoming a Christian for a long, long time) has not
yet learned how to lean on God. Just as one doesn’t start weightlifting by
attempting to bench-press 500 pounds, it is often counterproductive to try to
tackle our biggest problems right off the bat.
It is often better to fight the small battles first.
In doing so, we strengthen our spiritual muscle and learn how our relationship
with God works. We learn how to identify His presence and activity in our
lives, and we become more aware of His prompting and His direction. With each
small victory, our faith grows stronger, and we are able to face the tougher
problems with more confidence and assurance of God’s help. Each small step of
obedience brings us closer to ultimate victory.
And we are also less likely to suffer from the spiritual
equivalent of a pulled muscle afterward.
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