I'm in good company!

This part of the adventure hasn’t been easy, mainly it has been a struggle of the mind. When you think about it though, most major battles are lost or won on the battlefield of the mind. There was a point last week when that feeling of total uselessness overcame me and I went into a bit of a funk. Mostly out of boredom, I realized that I hadn’t accomplished anything that week. I mainly just sat around looking at my messy house and trying to work up the energy to clean because I knew that would make me feel better about myself, but as the days went on I felt worse and worse. At one point I was reading past posts that I had written- posts about chasing Lions and jumping off Cliffs. I could see the faith that I had in that moment. Faith to trust God for what was inevitable, but somehow, in the face of what the enemy was trying to get me to buy into, my faith was wavering. As I re-read those posts, it was almost like someone else had written them, because it was so far off what I was feeling in the moment.

I suppose that it is human nature to struggle with faith. All through the Bible there are examples of people of great faith conquering the enemies of Israel and then immediately encountering crises of faith. Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18, but the next thing we see of him is when he is despairing for his life because Jezebel has put a bounty on his head.

The Isrealites were a classic case of achieving great things and then second-guessing God when things got rough. Remember Peter, he walked with Jesus and still had a crisis of faith. Thomas doubted, and the epistles are full of accounts of humanity struggling with faith. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that (in between jumping into the pit after the lion, and emerging from the pit victorious), Benaiah (1 Chron. 11:22) had a few twinges of “Oh my, what have I gotten myself into?”

I have full faith in God’s ability and His track record, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am looking at a dwindling bank account and forthcoming mortgage payments!

Stay tuned...