Faith for When Life Turns Against Us

On the one hand, there seems no living advantage in having faith — to give up our lives that God might ‘control’ us.  But, on the other hand, there is one thing for which faith is indispensable.  When life turns against us, which it inevitably does.

Faith is indispensable when life spits at us through the teeth of rejection.  The saliva of denunciation is humiliating, but faith makes it possible to take the next step as if we were never more accepted (and through Jesus, we are!).

Faith is obligatory when we have no sane choice other than step into the unknown in the belief that God is good and won’t let us down.

Faith is crucial when anguish abounds.  It gives no credence to giving up.

Faith is paramount when our backs are against the wall.  All other options cavort sink with ineffectuality.

Faith is the imperative for hope when life turns to death.

Faith is priceless when the Jewel of Hope falls out of the crown of life.

We need to believe in our suffering, that enduring our suffering patiently produces in us patience.  To not believe is to make of the suffering something utterly futile, which has no character of the love of God about it.

We believe in our anguish that our choice to endure will redeem some precious and priceless compensation; treasurable growth.  And it turns out, that’s the way endurance works.

The love of God infuses life, and to go about life without faith is to go about life choosing hopelessness, as if there were no other options.

There is no point to life without hope-producing faith.  But with faith, we overcome mountains of impossibility with little other than the belief that we can.  Because, we can.

We must save faith for a rainy day.  But we’re apt to live frivolously on the long balmy days as the storm belt threatens.

It’s tragically ironic.  We build faith when we most need it by the truckload.

We’re most ill-prepared when the rains come teeming down and the gusts howl in a torrent.

Build a viable faith now, by living in a force-ten conditioned life.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.