Father, help us to realise that we are part of your family.
This is something that I've been asked my opinion on by a few people recently. I think each one has expressed concerns that their faith may be weak and they find the world around us to be confusing and difficult.
To be honest, I find this comforting; that means it's not just me who feels this way at times. Yet when we look at scripture we see those, who we would describe as pillars of faith, acting in exactly the same way. Elijah told God he felt lost and alone (1 Kings 19:14), Noah was ridiculed for demonstrating his faith, Jonah was frightened and didn't want to preach God's message and even Jesus was apprehensive just before his crucifixion (Matt 26:42).
Yet it's this realisation that more often than not sparks a turn-around. Our faith does have troughs and peaks. Sometimes accepting we are at a low is the first step in the process to climb up again. The Bible talks about our faith being tested, and if it's always a pass, what's the point of the test? Sometimes we do fail. I know I do, yet we can always come back to Jesus again.
If we're talking about failure big-time, what about Peter? Just moments after he had given those wonderful words "Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death" Jesus tells him he will deny him, not once but three times.
Sometimes our faith is so weak we do fail Jesus, yet without failure we never grow. The muscles in our body need to stretch and sometimes the effort we put in causes them to fray and split, yet this is a natural, in fact God-designed, aspect of our physical make up. The more we exercise, the more the muscles develop. Paul says something very similar in his letter to Timothy (chapter 4, verse 8) when he says "For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."
The world we live in can cause our faith to waver. Yet it's always been like that, for thousands of years. Christians aren't thrown to the lions these days yet there's always going to be persecution. The reliance on science to answer all our prayers is very misguided. The call of materialism and peer pressure all add to the test.
In some ways I find the recent anti-Christian attitudes refreshing. It really shows us that the Bible is right and that we do in fact live in the last days. It give us an opportunity to demonstrate our faith, to make our stance and choose our side. Christianity is not the soft option, to go to church because everyone else does, to cruise through life with everyone agreeing with us, because it's not like that now. Or else how would our faith be tested?
There's a saying; "There's no such thing as a problem, only an opportunity." To us this really is true. Sometimes we do feel lonely, but so did Elijah. Sometimes people ridicule us, but they did that to Noah as well. Sometimes we're frightened, but so was Jonah. Sometimes we feel apprehensive, but so did Jesus. Yet they, with God's help, came back to do what God wanted. The same will apply to us. We are all part of the family of God. There's lots of people out there who feel exactly as we do.
If you want to look at people who showed their faith, read Hebrews chapter 11. They didn't have it easy either. What they did have was an opportunity to show their faith.