One of the hardest things to do is to exercise our faith. It’s one thing to stretch out a little, but to do it until it hurts is another matter. Right? God’s nudgings pushes us to go into areas we normally wouldn’t go, and for us to get there, we may go through training times that takes our faith down a roller coaster of emotions: One minute we have faith to move mountains, the next we are crying in despair. One day we are hopeful, the next we feel helpless. We praise God for His provisions but as soon as they dry up we panic. We regain strength only to feel exhaustion. We wonder if we are double-minded then stand firm in the promises He made us. We feel like we have a testimony only to realize we are still in the test.
The Bible talks about exercising authority, self-control, godliness, discernment… but I believe faith gets exercised too. It gets stretched and extended beyond what’s comfortable and gets so painful that we feel like we can’t go further. We want to give up but know that there is no turning back, because we have already jumped off the mountain-top wondering if we are going to crash in the valley or make it onto the next mountain-top. We wonder if this is normal or have we somehow missed God? Did we make a mistake? Did we hear Him wrong? Did we move too fast? To slow? Are we out of His will?
If we are still doing the faith walk, the answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO! God is training us. He knows the choices we were going to make before we made them and is using them for our good. We are gaining confidence in the confusion. A calming in our calamities. The feelings and the soreness we have, making us feel that we have been beat up, is actually strengthening us. We just can’t see it yet because we are still in the process. Through it all we have trusted God and our thread of hope is turning into a cable of steel. It’s not over. We aren’t going crazy. Our faith is being exercised and getting stronger.
Blessings!
Elder Steve Smith