Faith Without A Friend

I want us to dive deep into the pool of faith, hopefully being instructed and encouraged to believe God - regardless of circumstances or other evidence that says not to.

Faith is not only critical in the Christian life, it is a crucial element in the human life. Faith and hope are essential for our all around well-being. The substance of faith, or the lack thereof, affects us mentally, emotionally, physically, as well as Spiritually. And if it is one thing that the devil wants to destroy in our life, it is our faith.

Our positive outlook on life, on circumstances, on prospects, and possibilities. Satan wants to destroy people’s faith. Your faith. My faith. He wants to tear away at the fabric of our faith, watching any and all hope that we do have completely unravel in our lives.

And with an enemy on the prowl, whose sole target for destruction is our faith, it is many times a great challenge to maintain any measure of positive outlook in our lives. Satan wants our present and our future to look as dismal as possible.

He wants our faith, our hope, and our belief. Not just on a Spiritual level, but on a natural level as well. He wants us to be hopeless, faithless, tormented, confused, despairing, and depressed. He wants us discouraged with life in general, and he doesn’t care how he accomplishes his agenda.

What we must always remember, though, is that faith develops through dilemmas and difficulties. We think that if we had no problems or trials, or at least no major ones, that we could have great faith. But one of the base realities of life is the fact that we will have problems. There will always be issues that arise to complicate our lives.

And though Satan may have a certain desire in those times, our all-knowing, all-caring, and all-able God has a plan and desire of His own. And where the devil comes to steal our faith, God comes to strengthen our faith. *Every problem has two possibilities: It can weaken and steal our faith, or it can build and strengthen our faith. Every problem, every issue, every difficulty, is a "fork in the road." We can go one of two ways. The side of fear, or the side of faith.

*We must constantly remind ourselves that when problems arise, or when situations don’t turn out like we want them to, we have come to the fork in the road. And we have a choice. Which side will we choose? I can tell you now, that the path of fear will lead to discouragement, depression, and ultimately to destruction. But the path of faith will lead us to development, dependance, and ultimately to deliverance!

And if you’re going to walk the path of faith, remember that faith is not proved and strenghtened in success, but by your struggle. It’s the struggle to get out of the cocoon that gives the butterfly strength to fly. And it is our struggles in life that are to work to strenghten our faith, and allow us to soar!

Faith is not needed where there are no negative elements. Faith is not needed in constant success and prosperity. Faith is needed when you are in the midst of struggles in your soul, where the natural thing, the easy thing, to do is to throw up our hands and quit! You don’t need faith when everything’s fine; you need it when everything seems to be failing!

We need faith when any or every part of our life seems to be falling apart! Because it is faith that gets you from the struggle to success, from the battle to the blessing. Faith is only needed in the midst of fiery trials, when we are under an attack of an endless array of the devilish darts of doubt. It is then we need the shield of faith to sustain us!

And here’s the thing about faith: You have to have faith in the very point of attack. You can’t be under an attack in your finances, and cling to a faith that God is the healer of sickness. *While He is a healer, that is not the exact area in which you need to possess faith. And so faith has to point to the area of the specific attack that you’re under. It has to be relevant to the particular "needy area" in your life in order for it to help get you through the struggle. And that’s very difficult when all of the natural circumstances points in a direction which is in contrast to faith. It is a challenge to maintain faith, when the natural thing to do is fear, worry, stress out, have a nervous breakdown, or to just quit.