the fight for your faith

Faith isn’t always something that comes easy. It's not always something you feel like having. Sometimes it’s even something you will have to fight for…

Yeah I said it. You have to choose it. Just like you choose anything else in this life. 

The fight for faith is much like the fight for your joy or the fight your peace. It’s very much something you have to want badly, something you have to consistently be working on. Your faith may feel lost at times and guess what, that’s ok! 

Because just like peace and joy, it is something that is well worth the fight at the end of the day because of the fulfillment and fruition of it. 

I find that in your hardest struggles is where you find your biggest battle of your faith and what’s funny is in those same battles is when you need faith the most. 

Coincidence? I think not.

Struggling with your faith I think is actually a great thing. It causes you to think about things, consider what you believe and why you believe it. I believe God isn’t offended one bit by us questioning things. And I have found that you experience God even more when your faith is something that you have to work for. When it's something that's a challenge. When it is something that you are 100% choosing to do even if you don't feel like it, that is when God really gets to work in your life! I grew up in a christian home, in church and even went to a christian school. Being a christian was something that was more natural to me because it felt comfortable, it felt right. But not until the past couple of years did I really have to choose my faith and put that faith to the test and in those years I've had lots of questions for God.

Did he even care about me? Why did he let all of this happen to me? Have I been wasting my life away on something that isn’t even real?

Now was time to do some soul searching and figure all this spirituality out for myself. Learn God for myself. Not from my parents. Not from any teachers. Not from friends. 

I’m truly grateful for the foundation that I had because it definitely gave me a head start on figuring things out but I found that instead of having a deep relationship with Jesus (although I did have a great relationship with him) I had actually just been following a set of rules. Doing what I thought I knew to be right. Trying to be a “good person”. But the problem here is that there is so much more to Christianity. Christianity isn't just a religion, something that you follow. There is a lot more to your spirituality than following some guidelines. And the biggest problem of all is if all you’re doing is following some rules you will have to deal with the opposite end of the spectrum being shame, guilt and fear that you’ll screw up. Aka a life of bondage. Which is the exact opposite of what we’re called to walk in!

Choosing faith is allowing hope in to your life. 

Choosing faith means accepting to believe that their is good when all feels like it’s falling apart. 

Choosing faith means having a relationship with Jesus and wanting to obey his word because you love Him. Because you truly believe He knows what’s best for you. Not trying your best to be perfect so that you will be good enough. That’s not what it’s about. God isn't interested in perfection. He's interested in the real, authentic you. All your struggles, all your mess ups, every tiny bit of you.

Faith is something I have found that is always there even when there is nothing else to run to, no one else to run to, God has never let me down. I have always found peace. I have always found joy. I have always found rest in the midst of the long nights while pressing into God.

That is why I believe. That is why I continue to run back to Him in every situation. He’s never failed me. He's never failed to show up in my pain.

I have experienced pain so crippling that it takes your breath away and in those same moments I have begged God to breathe life back into me. He always reminds me that He is the life who breathed His very own breath into us. And I believe the second each of us were created He saw in a flash our complete story. He’s prepared us for what we walk through and get this, what walk through is actually Him preparing us for our future! Just like a parent watching their child struggle to learn how to walk, they will fall. They might bump their head, scrape their knee, but as a parent you know it’s the only way they can learn to walk. I like to think of struggles this way. God’s saying I’m right here next to you through it all, you aren’t alone however you have to walk through this so that you can grow, so that you can bloom. You have to walk through the fire because it is what carves out the most beautiful you.

So thankfully through it all there is faith. Faith is such a beautiful part of life. I love that we get the opportunity to grow and learn and be challenged by our faith. I believe it creates our most beautiful self. And not only does it do that, but we also get to experience the beautiful endings to when we put our faith to the test. 

So today I challenge you. I challenge you that in those moments of questioning God, go fight for your faith. Go searching for it. Run after it. Ask God to speak to you, ask him to answer your questions. Give it your all! God said when you search for Him you will find Him. Jeremiah 29:13 says “When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.”

*If you have been struggling with your faith and are looking for answers a great book I’ve been listening to on audible is called “The case for faith” by Lee Strobel I highly recommend it!*