Every Wednesday at 6:30am,my friend Suzanne and I meet together via the telephone to pray for our families and share what God has been doing throughout the week. There can be no doubt about it that the topic of conversation last week was Faith. Seems like a common aspect of our walk with God but for some reason today after discussing all the ups and downs a few of our children are walking through, the thought popped into my mind...could faith operate somewhat like a muscle? There could be no debate on the fact that a muscle needs to be worked in order for it to perform it's function so the first thing I did was look up the actual definition of a muscle to see if I could see the correlation.
mus.cle
noun-a band or bundle of fibrous tissue in a human or animal body that has the ability to contract, producing movement in or maintaining the position of parts of the body.
verb-move an object in a particular direction by using one's physical strength.
I soon found out that I am not the first one to come across this revelation, as my research produced many things written along the same lines. But what exactly is God telling me about faith in my walk with Him and almost as a answer to my question, I noticed that throughout the week everywhere I looked I saw a message pertaining to this topic. Even the apostles said unto the Lord..."Increase our faith" in a chapter of Luke. So I'm getting the picture that the Lord might be speaking to me about the increase of my faith. I'm curious now to think that if I visualize faith like a muscle that maybe giving that muscle a workout might be of some benefit to my soul. The opposite of faith is doubt,fear and worry and I can attest to the fact that I swing back and forth much to often.
How else can this muscle of faith be developed unless it is put to the test in what I call the issues of life which we all wrestle with on a daily basis. We would love for our faith to move mountains but what about the the little things, the day to day worries such as getting from point A to point B, or to know that your finances will carry you through the month or that a sick child will be made well? Jesus said "if your are faithful in the little things, you will be faithful in the greater things too". Faith is not magic. It has taken me many years of dependency on a God I can't see or hear to trust His word. One issue after another provides me the opportunity to lean on Him and acknowledge His ways and sure enough, He has never failed me.
The Psalms say that the Lord is our refuge, a light and our salvation but I think what is going on has more to do with our participation rather than us just sitting silently by waiting for God to take care of our every need. When Jesus said in Matthew 7 to "Ask,seek,knock and the door will be opened" that implies a forward motion, a movement on our part, a strengthening of the muscle to gain the victory. The exercise of that faith muscle makes the difference in what ever issues you are facing. Is there anything truly worthwhile in life that has been won without an effort? I guess once we know we have done all we can do, we then stand still and watch and wait.
This morning God spoke to me about an interesting way of communication with Him that I never thought about before. Throughout these past months of my prayer time with Suzanne we marvel at how God leads our conversation and has us discussing what He wants us to pray about. Since this topic of faith was so vividly real to me last week and it was no coincidence that every day I was being presented with yet another nugget of information on my original question, I decided to start a journey of a "one on one" with God in this same way and write about it so I can look back and read the writing on the wall. I have asked God to reveal what He wants to discuss with me each week; what does He want to show me, teach me, grow me up in? What areas of my life do I need discipline in and I will in faith be expecting His reply.
Here I am Lord, speak to me!!!
