Your feelings certainly do not affect your salvation or your relationship with the Lord. They may try to deceive you or rob you of your peace and joy in Christ; they may even harass or accuse. But it is time you recognize some unsettling feelings are messages from the enemy, intended to bring you down into despair and fear.
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1, KJV). The very word race suggests competition. God’s people are likened to runners in a long distance race, competing for a prize — the prize being a glorious revelation of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We corrupt the race towards eternity when God’s people compete with one another for success, prosperity and acclaim. Christ becomes nothing more than the sponsor, since all the runners claim to be competing in his name.
Do you believe your faith is weak? Have you diligently prayed about a need and believed God with all your heart that he would provide, and you did not see an answer? You read the glorious promises about all things being possible to those who believe: “Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). “Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24). And you claimed those promises!
One of the reasons our prayers might not be answered is because we attempt to prescribe how God should answer them. And that all boils down to a lack of trust. The believing soul, after he has unburdened his heart in prayer to the Lord, resigns himself to the faithfulness, goodness, and wisdom of God. The true believer will leave the shaping of the answer to God’s mercy and he will welcome whatever way God chooses to answer.
The Bible shows a pattern in the lives of all God’s people. In case after case, when God began to fulfill his promises, the roof seemed to cave in.
All of us know what afflictions are, those times of trouble and stress that keep us up at night. They can be so painful and debilitating that we lose sleep because of the anguish and anxiety. Yet, as painful as afflictions are, God uses them to achieve his purposes in our lives. David writes, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). However, you may be surprised to know that God can use afflictions to heal sinners as well as saints.
Jesus asked, “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” He had just told the story of a persistent woman who asked a judge to rule in her favor and bring justice to her cause (see the story in Luke 18:2-8.) Jesus uses this woman as an example of the kind of tenacious, enduring faith he is looking for — the kind that calls upon God in times of trial and trusts him to fulfill his promises. Christ knew such enduring faith would be the only kind able to sustain his people in the times to come.
When you are experiencing a “dry” season in your spirit, a time of feeling isolated and forsaken, questions will undoubtedly arise. “Father, why do you feel so far from me? Have I sinned once too often? Are you angry with me? Do you still love me?” During these difficult times you don’t feel like reading the Word or praying or praising him. And God feels ever more distant.
All true believers experience such times in their Christian walk — even Jesus felt isolation and cried out, “Father, why have You forsaken Me?” when he was on the cross (see Matthew 27:46).
What is it about faith that keeps demanding of us greater testings? Just when we come through one trial that proves us faithful, our heart declaring, “Lord, I will trust you for everything,” here comes another test, increased in its intensity. This experience is shared by Christians worldwide.
If our leaders declared they had absolutely no idea how to govern and provide direction, our nation would be confused and fearful. But that very thing happened in the time of King Jehoshaphat when three enemy armies were closing in on Judah. This mighty king called the nation together and instead of presenting a war plan and a decisive declaration of action, he stood before the people and poured out his heart out to God: “Here they come, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not judge them?