Inconvenient Faith

I came to a pretty startling revelation today. It hit me at the weirdest time too, right in the middle of my shift at work. As you may have gathered in my last post, I am definitely having a "faith crisis". My relationship with God has been strained to say the least. As I look back to a time when my relationship was God was vibrant, real, living, moving, I realize that at that time in my life, things were great. While we always have financial concerns, (who doesn't), we were stable. My wife and I were both growing in our faith and our ministries. We entered a time in our lives where things at home just fell into place. We were blessed with great friends. Everything was good for us. It was when things started to fall down around us, when I should have held on to my faith, I let it go. In other words, when things were good in my life, God was good. When things were bad, I found myself asking "where is God?"

I have always admired people who have held on to their faith when they had nothing else. People who lived their lives totally believing that God has divinely blessed them. The perfect home, perfect kids, perfect marriage, perfect jobs. On both ends of the scale, I have seen people with amazing faith. Why then, for me, when I started to lose everything, did my faith take a hit??? I used to pray daily, read devotionals with my wife and kids, spend time in the bible. On the outside, I was doing everything a good little christian should do. But in my heart, I never learned to trust God, and lean on God when things were bad. I had very conditional faith. That leads to other issues. How can I be a good representation of my faith, especially since there are so many whack job Christians out there? How can I teach my kids the things of God, when I don't know them? How can I teach others, and minister to kids, when I stopped letting God minister to me?

I don't have any answers for that. What I do know now, is that while my life hasn't gone the way I wanted it to, or expected it to, I am not without blessing. What I do know is there have been time, and situations in my life where I shouldn't have come out on top, or protected, yet I have. And if I open my eyes, and look, and see, God has been trying to get my attention through others. So, that is my quest. Developing my faith to be strong, even when I am not. Developing a faith that still exists, even though things may be falling apart. Developing a faith that isn't dependant on how good things are, but a faith that challenges me to be better, have a better attitude, even when it's inconvenient, or I don't feel like it. Anyone can praise God among blessings, and standing in the sun on the mountaintop. Real faith, abiding faith, is being able to praise God when the storms are raging, and darkness sets in, and your lost in the deepest valley. I want a faith like that.