Growing Your Faith
I was discipling someone who was going through a difficult trial. Every week during our meeting, he was asking me to pray for his faith to grow. But every week, he was also in turmoil over the adversity he was up against.
One week, after listening to his struggle, I asked him, “Do you want relief from this trial, or do you want your faith to grow stronger?”
He answered, “Both.”
I said, “Doug, you can’t really get one without the other.”
I continued by explaining how God grows our faith. He uses His Word. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (NKJV). He was doing that. We were going through The God Project material, so he was learning the Word of God.
But God grows our faith by forcing us to put it into work, and that only happens when our faith is challenged by circumstances.
That’s because faith is like a muscle. It needs to be stressed and exercised. Imagine a bodybuilder thinking he could grow his muscles without lifting.
Faith has to be stressed and worked in order to grow. We do that by facing difficult circumstances and putting God’s Word into action in those situations. Growing our faith, then, isn’t easy…it takes work. It’s hard.
But it is worth it. I love what Jesus’ little brother, James, said about this, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3). Paul wrote, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4).
More than anything, God wants a deep connection with you. And that takes some adversity in our lives to grow our faith. That faith…that trust…requires learning and practicing God’s Word in all areas of life, especially in the hard things.
So whatever it is you are going through — tough times at work, financial hardship, relationship issues — it’s there for a bigger reason. God allows you to go through what you are facing so that you can apply His Word to those difficult circumstances, and thereby grow your trust in Him, truly following Him in all things.
Colossians 2:7 – Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.