"Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promises of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” (Romans 4:20)
Faith isn’t the absence of fear and doubt but the deliberate, consistent choice to overcome our fears and doubts by affirming your beliefs. In fact, crisis times like these give us opportunity to accelerate the growth of strong faith. It’s like muscles. When we run uphill our muscles become stretched the most and grow the most.
My daughter Heidi, recently said, this crisis is like God offering us a free membership to a faith fitness center. We have the opportunity to grow our faith like never before.
There is an old story about a Cherokee chief who was explaining about character to his sons. He told them, “you see sons there are two wolves inside of all of us. One is evil and one is good. One or the other will ultimately win and decide who we become. One son asked, “Which one wins Dad?” The father said, “Whichever one you feed.”
The Bible teaches us to feed our faith and starve our doubts and fears. The key way we do that is by what we focus on. Someone said, “What gets your attention gets you.” The verse at the top of the page refers to Abraham and the battle he went through in his 27 years of waiting for God to fulfill His promise regarding the birth of a son. Abraham struggled with many doubts. He didn’t allow those doubts to become unbelief. Instead he grew his faith muscle by giving glory to God for His promises.
Steve Bauchland wrote a book called, “You’re crazy if you don’t talk to yourself.” I believe talking to yourself about the promises of God is key to exercising your faith. It causes your focus to stay on Jesus in the crisis. There’s a story of a Dad taking his toddler in a cart through Walmart. The boy was super hyper, crying a lot and reaching to take things off of the shelf. The Dad kept saying, “It’s OK Tommy, we can do this, don’t be upset.” As he checked out the cashier said, “I am so impressed by the way you talked down your son Tommy.” The Dad said, “He’s not Tommy, I’m Tommy, his name is George.” I love that story it reminds me to keep talking to myself about the promises of God.
Love,
Dale
You can watch a short video about this blog at: https://www.facebook.com/102290718050412/posts/122582822687868/?vh=e&d=n