Growing Faith in Difficult Times

"Faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest. The person of faith is not a person who has been born, luckily, with a good digestion and sunny disposition..... It is Christ, not culture, that defines our lives. It is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shapes our days." - Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Pause and do a stock take on our spiritual walk. When was the last time we really cried out to the Lord in desperation? When was the last time we felt a really sudden surge in our faith? When was the turning point in our Christian walk where our faith suddenly went one notch higher?

Honestly, it is typically during the rough patches in life that we will cry out to God for help. We can easily get by each smooth sailing or 'nothing much' days without the need for God.

A simple equation can easily look like this:

Difficult times => Faith in God grows

Normal times => Faith stagnates or gradually goes downhill

The truth of the matter is that it is NOT the difficult times that make our faith grow. In fact, it is the desperate crying out during the difficult times that causes our faith to grow.

If God hadn't been for us — all together now, Israel, sing out! - If God hadn't been for us when everyone went against us, We would have been swallowed alive by their violent anger, Swept away by the flood of rage, drowned in the torrent; We would have lost our lives in the wild, raging water. Oh, blessed be God! He didn't go off and leave us. He didn't abandon us defenseless, helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs. We've flown free from their fangs, free of their traps, free as a bird. Their grip is broken; we're free as a bird in flight. God's strong name is our help, the same God who made heaven and earth. - Psalm 124 (The Message)

There is that natural tendency within us to cry out to the Father for help during these tough moments because we know in His promise to us that "God's strong name is our help" and we CAN put our faith and trust in Him. God will NEVER fail us.

My prayer is that we all do not need to wait till tough times that we turn to call upon God, but that everyday we can call upon His name in all that we do.

We can do so, because God is a God that 'doesn't go off nor leave us'!