How to have Gritty Faith
Waiting. I’ve learned that everyone is waiting on something. For some it may be a more intense journey of infertility, healing, marriage, etc. and for others it’s waiting in line at your neighborhood coffee shop. In all circumstances, there is a wrestling when you wait. An uncomfortable tension to navigate. What can comfort the raw pain of not knowing if your dreams will ever come to pass? What becomes of our faith? How do we press on towards our divine hope while our soul shatters in defeat? All of these beautiful questions teach us one thing...*insert the answer of our faith*
Waiting can produce a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that at times, can be excruciating. At some point in the human experience, we all face this thing called a “crisis of faith.” Whether you are a believer or not, you either run towards Jesus or away from him. Disappointment is a dangerous journey should you not wrestle in it well. I cannot explain the ways of God, but only that which I know from experience of who Jesus has been to me and who He has been since before Genesis.
My friend was asking me about my birthday recently and I was telling her about fear that has come up in me, now that I am in my late twenties. That I felt like I was being left behind in life or I haven’t done anything of “significance” yet. For those of you that do not know my story, I have watched all my friends get married, on their 2nd and 3rd children, and building the “American dream.” Nothing in my life is as I hoped it would turn out, since I gave my life to Jesus over a decade ago now. God has used singleness to purify my faith and has been a 9-year journey of walking it out with God. On the phone, I felt like I could have a panic attack at any moment. The feeling of helplessness can be overwhelmingly brutal. The feeling that we can’t “fulfill” the desires of our heart. We try our hardest to discipline those desires only to wound up exhausted from striving; Striving to not feel the pain of potentially never seeing our dreams come to fruition. These are the things we have to talk about so on that Day, we can hear our blessed Hope say “Well done, thy good and faithful servant.”
Jesus says that a little leaven ruins the whole batch (Gal. 5:9) I think that “leaven” is bitterness and unbelief. If you choose to partner with those things, blame God, try to “make things happen” on your own...your depression and anxiety will increase, your hope will diminish, and you will never find freedom apart from Him.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says “His ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts,” but do we really believe that? Do you really believe that whatever your suffering is, what he chooses to do or not do. Ask yourself that question.: “Do you really believe that God is who is says He is no matter what happens?”
Back to the conversation where I told my friend “I feel like I could have a panic attack.” Here is the how the rest of that conversation went. (also, grace for the grammar & run on sentences as I transcribe this convo).
I told her, “You know if this never happened for me, if I never saw the promises of God unfold for my life, even if I thought about throwing in the towel of faith. Or giving up. Or losing hope. Or falling off the bandwagon. There is nothing that would satisfy me if I did that. There is no point in even trying to partner in rebellion because I would still be miserable. I would be in a worse place than when I started. I am the stuck in the juxtaposition of uncertainty, that I certainly cannot control. So here are my choices: I press in through the narrow road, I dig my heels in, and I walk out in what I now call ‘gritty faith.’ There is no place we can go that we will avoid the beauty of His spirit. No matter how hard it gets, I will choose to press forward towards Jesus.”
Psalm 139: 7-12
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
And as you wrestle, I believe God is the one that kneads the dough of your heart as you wait on Him. He “works out your salvation” per se (Philippians 2:12). If you choose to press into the waiting season, it does something to your heart. You start to become love. The fruit of patience/long suffering (1 Cor. 13:4) is the substance of love. You mirror the very image of Christ as you embrace the waiting season. Dear friend, I charge you to live in the tension of faith as we look towards our Beloved Savior, High Priest, Bride Groom, King, and Judge. The one who lives to make intercession for us. The one to whom we ask for strength and He becomes the very strength within us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
If you are wrestling with the Truth of the gospel, here it is: Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. There is an eternal hope waiting to take root in your heart, so that you are immoveable in the face of trials. Whatever you are waiting on or believing for, ask the Holy Spirit to become near to you. Ask Him to become your very hope. Ask Him for the grace and strength to walk through what He has called you to walk through. I charge you to dig your heels in and walk in gritty faith, until He calls you home. There is a promise of nearness, when you draw near to Him (James 4:8).
In Him,
Jenna
