Exercise Your Faith Muscles

When the new year rolls around everyone starts thinking about exercising and getting into shape. What about starting an exercise program for your faith? 

I Peter 1:6-7 ~ "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

"I can't take one more thing!" I cried out to my husband. A number of years ago, it had been a tough month in our household. We were faced with a major move, a $3,300 tax bill, I had pneumonia and then to top it off, our car bit the dust. I was sapped physically, emotionally and financially. Through my human eyes I could not see how we were going to manage.

Yet, as I read this passage in I Peter 1:6-7 I was being told to be joyful in the middle of my trials. How in the world can I do that? 

I have found that the key is in knowing who is in control of all things. I once heard someone give the definition of joy as the settled knowledge that God is in control of all circumstances. I can feel peace when I trust that He is in control and that He will work things out.

When I keep my eyes fixed on the Lord and not on the circumstances, My faith muscle in exercised and grows. As I persevere through hard times, the Lord teaches me the lessons He has for me. It is my faith as I struggle with a situation that brings Him honor. It is being able to trust that leads me to praise Him even when I can't see the end result.

On the flip side, if I take my eyes off Him and put them onto my problems that faith can take a nose dive. I can start to worry and feel anxious. I can begin to become overwhelmed. I start trying to fix the situations myself and quite often, make them worse. I feel depressed and discouraged.

I would encourage you, no matter what you are going through , to keep your eyes on the Lord. Ask Him to help you persevere through it. It is in the persevering that our faith grows and that we become mature and complete.

All those situations that I was stressing about eventually went away and over the years, have been replaced with different stressors. But I'm learning that whatever I am facing that God is faithful to see me through. 

And my faith muscles have grown as I have worked them out. They aren't bulging muscles but they have certainly grown throughout the years and yours will too when you learn to trust the Lord.