Fighting For My Faith
Mark 9:22-24 Amplified Bible (AMP)
22 And it has often thrown him both into fire and into water,
intending to kill him. But
if You can do anything, do have pity on us and help us. 23 And
Jesus said, [You say to
Me], If You can do anything? [Why,] all things can be (are possible) to
him who believes! 24 At once the father of the boy gave [an eager,
piercing, inarticulate] cry with tears, and he said, Lord, I believe! [Constantly]
help my weakness of faith! (Unbelief)
I sat up in bed suddenly this morning after little sleep,
my husband and I were up working in projects as if we were some twenty year
olds running on pure adrenalin and no doze.
I felt as if I had somehow been almost startled awake; because I knew I
had a lot to do today, and I think the thought slapped me awake. As I began to go over the list in my mind; I stopped to pray, because I was feeling out
of sorts and a bit more out of balance than is normal or acceptable. I felt anxiety and fear creeping in and a bit
of frustration which I am well aware is often rooted in anger or
misunderstanding. So much in my life
this last year has gone extremely right and what one would could consider
extremely wrong; my inability to compartmentalize it and understand the “Why God
factor,” was at times overwhelming, and this morning seemed to be one of those
times. You see I grew up in church
(Apostolic), where we were not taught that doubt was a part of the faith
process or package. Even for most of my
adult life I was taught that “where there is fear there is “NO” faith.” But Our Bishop over the last years has been
teaching me so much about the constant battle of flesh and spirit, will and
spirit and the difference in the spirit, soul and body I understand that fear,
apprehension and a lot of things I never thought were a part of the process are
and they do not make me any less of a good person or a Christian because
struggle happens, Last year Bishop preached a lesson on Faith Confrontation
that broke this very subject down for us all. Recently, Bishop McCissick, taught us that
there will definitively be times when we will face elements in our walk where
we will utter, “I believe but help my unbelief,” because we are fearful or
struggling with our faith.
You see fighting for your faith is not abnormal; it is
not something that you should be ashamed of, why because you at least are still
in the fight. You are still in the ring,
standing, when others have been knocked down and out or have chosen to leave
the ring and forfeit the fight all together.
There are season when we are faced with things that we have never seen
before; things that we have no reference point for, things that make our stomachs
turn and us lose our ability to find the right words to articulate our feelings
in prayer. There are times when we look
at what we are facing and going through and tears spontaneously begin to stream
down our faces, not out of sheer joy, but in turn many times out of sheer
frustration and anger over why we have to be in this place, especially when we
feel like we have tried to do what God has asked and have tried to treat people
often better than we ever seem to get treated in return. It is here we have so many questions and not
enough answers; we have so much coming at us and not enough hands to handle it
all and keep all of the balls in the air.
It is here that we find ourselves with a bunch of month and not enough
to meet the month. But yet many of us
have been told to count it all a joy and to have enough Jesus not to feel some kind
of way about it. I have even been guilty
of saying “where is your faith” and questioning my own place in God when I have
doubted or found myself in this fight.
But guess what. This morning, I
understood this is a place of warfare; this is a place that whether we want to
admit it or not we all find ourselves, but the key is at least putting up our
hands to fight, at least trying to stand in the word, at least trying not to
lay down and die, at least picking up a foot and making a step, instead of
standing in a state of being paralyzed by the situation and allowing it to take
us down.
Today, whether you find yourself in a fight like me, or
you have come out of a fight, or whether right now you are blessed to be in a
season that your faith is strong and well in hand, understand that growing your
faith and maintaining it on this journey, requires confrontation that produces
conflict, and often warfare. As I
expressed to my daughter this morning anything worth having is worth fighting
for. Know that the fact that you are
still fighting means more than you will know.
Understand the fact that God has not given up on you even when you are
in this place, stand up and give it all you have, for I am sure He will deliver
(Many evils confront the [consistently] righteous, but the Lord
delivers him out of them all. Psalms 34:19)
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