Wednesday, January 25, 2023
Do you ever feel that your faith has been shaken to the core? I know that several times in my own life I felt that way. I felt a great loss of faith and felt horrible about it. Maybe you have felt that way as well.
When we feel like our faith is shaken somehow, we feel doubt that disturbs us, loss from things in our life, grief possibly, the pain we can’t express. We feel disappointed in and with life, but the good news is that no matter how bad our faith has been shaken we can overcome it and go on. And during our loss of faith big or small, we can find grace in God for “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:9). The Lord loves us that are His and will walk with us through whatever is hurting us to get us through it. He can take a horrible situation and bring good out of it.
Many of you are going through something in your life right now and are feeling totally overwhelmed. You are human! Since we are human (stuff) happens and a lot of it we don’t want, and we don’t know what to do about it. I would venture to say that if you’ve ever found yourself without faith and in a dark spot in your life that you want and need some grace from God to get you through the rough spots. You need God’s strength to lean upon.
Is your faith collapsing around you? Mine sure was several different times. Yes, I had faith for years and years, but sometimes when “the stuff of life” happens, and things felt overwhelming I don’t know what I did with my faith for a season. It pretty much jut went kaput!
What would I call those times that were difficult in my life? For a few of them, it was like being smothered or going down in the water (as they say…a third time). My very soul was in pain and as I said, it was not a good place to be.
I have concluded that what each of us goes through in life is not only for a reason to help us down the road but also for us to help someone else who is going through something and needs a “wee” bit of encouragement so they can also make it through the situation.
So how do/did we get to the point of loss of faith in humans, in church, in society, in culture, and family or whatever it might be? Maybe our day starts out okay and we do whatever is normal for us to do when we get up. I like to study the word of God, take a nice hot shower, have my coffee, and do whatever needs to be done around the house.
So maybe our day might begin good, but then something happens and wham…life can take a turn, and that “stuff” can come on us quickly. We turn on the news and it can overwhelm us, the stuff our government might be trying to push on us, the woke crap going around, the gender identity garbage, the inflation, and what everyone wants us to go along with all their insane ideas and behaviors, even some churches and their progressive garbage, possibly things at work and you can no longer say this or that, what about society wanting to force you into calling things that are evil good and things that are good…evil?
I remember being so saddened prior by how I was treated in “church” and by a few people there who should have never acted like they did…and it hurt beyond words. They broke a bond I didn’t think anyone would…especially those in leadership. They broke a trust and it deeply hurt, and, even at times now when I think about it…and although I have forgiven them…I still hurt if and when I think about them and what they did and said. It broke trust and caused a massive failure on my part to do with faith. I hate that because faith is most important.
Church surely was not the same for a long time. People can be just mean and hateful even in the church, but then I thought about it and God calmed the storm in my soul. I was not there for those people; I was there to spend time with God. I loved the people, but I sure loved God even more. God got me through it. Maybe someone was sorry for what they did and said, but I didn’t see that. However, they are not my joy in life for only God is. We can’t please everyone and it didn’t make them a hypocrite like some would think. Some say they don’t go to church because it is filled with hypocrites…and yes, there are many there, but at least they are in the right place and maybe one day a message they hear in church will show them what they did and they will deal with it. I pray so! They might have done wrong, but how many things in our own life have we said or done something wrong? However, trust was broken, feelings hurt, and confidences broken which was horrible in my view. But again, in our life even when we didn’t do something that broke a confidence on purpose…possibly we still did at some point.
I could have left church altogether but what would that have accomplished? Yes, my faith was tested for a time, but our God is so amazing and wonderful that He knows exactly what to do…and even more important, when to do something.
I can tell you that prayer and more prayer helps beyond what we can even imagine. Even the apostles, at times, doubted. We all will have doubts at some point in our life. In those times seek God even more, pray, study, draw close to God and never give up. God can turn your loss of faith into a good thing and when He does, you just might see that now you can encourage someone else.
Now, may God bless you, protect you, show you what you need to do or not do, may He draw you close to Him more and more each day. May you find His peace no matter what goes on around or in you.
God bless you.