Some time ago, I attended a high school football game. It was homecoming night for one of the teams. That team won the game 45-00! Needless to say, the winning team had much to celebrate.
During the final minutes of the game, I thought about the losing team. I wondered how its players felt on the inside during the humiliating defeat. They had little or nothing to rejoice about. Clearly, their opponent was the better team. But to lose heart in the process adds to the defeat. I can’t help but believe that dynamic was at work during the game.
Then I thought about people who experience long, difficult times in life. It does not matter who you are in Christ, given the right set of circumstances, you can feel a sense of discouragement. You can find yourself riding an emotional roller coaster with respect to your faith in God.
Keeping the faith is vital during such times.
It’s easy to be happy in life and excited about God when all is well. You don’t even have to try. Those feelings are incidental to life going well. But keeping the faith is more challenging when you feel as if you are losing in the game of life.
The Sustaining Power of Faith
Faith in God is vital because all things are possible to him who believes. Faith enables you to see beyond the gloomy present to a victorious tomorrow. But if you lose your faith during the test, you will surely lose the battle.
Some believers tend to withdraw from the local church when life goes downhill. They don’t want to be bothered. They don’t want people asking them questions. And some of these believers become bitter toward God because they feel He has let them down.
I believe that for Christians, this is one of the worst ways to respond to being beat down by life. During those times, you need to hear a Word from the Lord. You need the encouragement of other people of faith.
When the going gets tough, the devil would love for you to cower in a cave somewhere and die. He wants you to abandon your faith in God. He knows that keeping the faith during the test will sustain you to win the battle.
Consider the words of Paul the apostle as he came to the close of his Christian journey:
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
2 Timothy 4:7, KJV
Based on Paul’s own words, keeping the faith was a vital key to finishing his course. The same applies to us.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.