“The funny thing about doubt is you can’t control its comings and goings. But faith is stronger than doubt because you control faith.” Gene Ho, Trumpography 2018
So if God gives us what we need, even when we fight it every step of the way, why doesn’t that include an abundance of faith. I mean, we need that, don’t we? For me the answer is double sided. No HE doesn’t just give us faith; we have to seek him for it, and then once we do, Yes HE will give us an abundance of faith.
We ask God for a lot. We ask HIM for security, health, (for us and others), safety, joy, peace, no more pain, healing . . . etc.
God asks one thing of us: To have faith that HE is there and loves us, forgives us, and will answer our prayers. Within that faith, HE expects us to live by his rules, even when he knows we most likely will fail.
You’d think that with all we ask of HIM, we should be able to have an abundance of faith once we seek him out. But we don’t, at least not at first, and sometimes even after we think we do, something traumatic happens in our lives and we lose our faith, or turn away from it because we’re hurting, angry, and mostly because we don’t understand. We question God. How could HE let this happen? We feel HE has failed us, or let us down. We trusted HIM with our faith, but what good is our faith if HE’s going to take our loved ones, or let something horrible happen.
So why do we question HIM? Where did that warm fuzzy, wonderful feeling of joy in our new found faith go?
I believe that because God gave us free will, HE can’t just reach down and give us an abundance of faith. Instead HE wants us to come to HIM through Jesus, and in that journey we learn more about our God. As we learn more about HIM our faith starts out like a seedling, breaking through the surface and feeling the warmth of the sun, and it feels marvelous. Some of us stop there . . . we’ve accepted Jesus into our hearts and we have faith that it’s going to be all good now.
God doesn’t want us to stop there, nor should we. Instead when our seedling feels the warmth of the sun, we should keep striving to learn more. As we learn more, our faith gets nourishment from God, and it grows taller and stronger. So God doesn’t automatically give us faith, but when we strive to know HIM, faith weaves itself into the fabric of our being, and is strengthened by HIS nourishment in our lives.
Satan casts doubts, like acid on our faith, in an attempt to turn us away from God. We can’t control what Satan throws at us, nor can we control when. Satan is always whispering, especially to those he feels are close to God, and we may not hear that whispering every day, but then wham – his whispers get louder and suddenly those acidic doubts start making us feel less than. We can, however, control our faith. When doubt is cast into our life, that’s the time to draw even closer to God; using our faith as a shield against our doubts.
I believe Satan has been working overtime casting doubt within me lately about a certain thing in my life. It doesn’t matter what the specific thing is, but it’s a big part of me and the doubt has been fairly intense. Because of my faith in God, I remind myself that the doubt Satan is casting is false. I am in control of my faith. I have placed every part of my life into God’s hands and God will decide the outcome. Satan doesn’t get to.
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