What Happens When Life Flies up in Your Faith?

For me faith is a struggle. It is never easy. I struggle with my control over my life verses God’s.

But to know that the mystery of faith lies with God rather than in me is critically important.

We can be a believer – and thus please God and be saved – in spite of our all-too-flawed behavior.

It’s no excuse. Our failures and sins are still wrong. They still bring unpleasant and sometimes lasting consequences. Nor we can be cavalier about righteousness and stop struggling against sin.

But the overarching importance of the Biblical narrative in both the Old and New Testaments rests not on virtuous lives lived but on God’s faithfulness.

Abraham’s experience in Egypt is a very real story of time and place. Peter’s denial experience before the crucifixion is the same.

Both examples reflect the reality of one person’s faith waxing and waning.

They remind us that believers sometimes fail tests of their faith by taking things into their own hands, doing what seems to be “natural” to them and leading with their fears rather than their faith.

So let us endure. Sometimes we learn from our failures; sometimes we don’t.

We just need to keep walking.