Last Sunday, like every other Sunday, I went to church in earnest expectation that God would minister individually to my spirit. My faith tank was running dangerously low and I needed a refill, I needed a good word. And the pastor did have a good word, but it never lit up my spirit. I desperately wanted to hear the voice of God through the pastor, but the more he preached, the more I felt disconnected.
Sometimes we struggle to believe, I don’t know whether it points to spiritual immaturity or just one of the seasons of the heart. But, sometimes faith is a struggle. The prophet comes with the good news that the season of despair is ending and a new season is beginning, and you desperately want to believe, desperately, but the bank of faith is completely spent.
On a closer examination, I realized that I do have faith; but I constantly let my faith ride on the wrong bus. When circumstances are right, hopes go high, when nothing seems to be working, hopes fade. We should never allow our faith to board the bus of circumstance, but only on our author and finisher of our faith Himself – Jesus.
There’s one thing that we can be guaranteed of; that God is faithful. If there’s not much else to hold on to, we can confidently clutch at the faithfulness of God. As in the days of 2 chronicles, Israel was surrounded by an army too powerful for them. A prophet’s word of promise could have been easily drowned in the sea of despair, but one king Jehoshaphat looked up to God, knowing that there was not much else he could hope in, and ended his prayer of surrender with
“…we do not know what to do, but oh Lord, our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12b).
Often, we put our faith in the wrong places. We place it in people, and the people fail; we place it in the weather; and the weather changes, we place it in institutions and laws, and then policies change; we place it in the government, and that too, disappoints. No wonder then that it becomes a struggle to believe because we place our faith on shifting ground. But, like King Jehoshaphat, if we place our faith in God, we can be assured that He will not change. His faithfulness withstands the weather, finances, policies, laws, weaknesses, and even time itself.
