What happens when our faith is shaken? Those around us seem to be enjoying the blessings of God, yet He seems deathly silent to us. We struggle with questions about why He isn’t answering our prayers, healing our bodies or hearts, or just not speaking to us. We feel like we have been given the “cold shoulder.”

Are we in trouble? Have we done something wrong to offend Him? You know the questions that are often so prevalent and yet just as often hidden from public view. Some, like Job’s friends, would say that yes, we have sin in our life, or we don’t have enough faith, or we just need to keep reading and praying harder and more. Others give in and think, “Hey, we’re just a bunch of worthless slugs here anyhow. We have no reason to expect anything from Him.”

The Bible is clear that God is sovereign. He is over all, bound neither by time or space, nor by human freedom. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isa. 55:9). We must not, however, use that train of thought as an excuse to give in to despair. While God is sovereign, He is also good, loving and gracious. One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is God’s self-introduction to Moses:

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation (Ex. 34:6-8).

In a some very early posts, we looked at this passage in detail (see The God of Gospel:  Part 1 and Part 2). Here, I simply want to point out that the very first phrases God uses to describe Himself include:

• merciful and gracious
• slow to anger
• abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness

What does this have to do with our faith? Everything. While we cannot understand His ways, we can trust His character. When it seems He is silent or distant, healthy self-examination is a good thing. After such a time, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we conclude that we are walking as best we know how, then what’s left? We’re still missing something. What could it be? It could very well be that the Lord is using this time to draw us closer to Himself—to a place where we want nothing but Him.

If you are still laying in bed bound in sickness, am I still good? Am I still Lord?

If I am all you have, will I be enough?

There are those who dispute this kind of thinking, and say we just need more faith. But that view turns faith into a weapon instead of a shield (Eph. 6:16). Faith was never intended to be a weapon. It was designed to keep us connected to the Lord and His promises. Perhaps we need to look again at what Jesus taught on faith.

Jesus often taught that “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed . . .” In context, Jesus was saying “either you have faith, or you don’t.” Faith is not like a liquid, where we pour more into our cup. It’s rather like a muscle that we exercise and build up. But Jesus said if we have faith as small as a mustard seed we could say to this mountain “be removed and cast into the sea” (Matt. 17:20). Now, if we truly have faith and we say to that mountain “move,” and it does not move, where does that leave us?

Jesus often spoke in terms of perfection or completeness. In the ideal world, unstained with sin, our faith would be perfect. We could ask for anything and receive it. Our problem is not that we don’t have faith. Part of the problem is that we don’t yet live in that ideal world! The teaching of the reformers was spot on when they taught that every part of us was contaminated by sin. (They called it ‘total depravity,’ not meaning that we are as bad as we can be, but that all of us—every part—has been corrupted by sin.) That must include our faith also. If it were not so, then our faith could be perfect, and, by extension, we could live sinless lives here on earth.

When Our Faith is Shaken

Notice that this post started with the question about when(not if) our faith is shaken. Our faith will be shaken. It will happen. Is that being fatalistic? Not at all. It’s simply being realistic. What are we to do when that happens?

First, I suggest that we prepare in advance. We know we will face difficult times. We can prepare for those times by growing in our knowledge of God, His character and His Word. It’s much easier to prepare during times when our faith seems strong than it is to try and learn those things in the midst of the struggle.

Second, in the times of struggle, cling to God’s Word. One of the most encouraging parts of Scripture is actually in the Old Testament—the Psalms. It is a book of anger, despair, fear—and salvation. David and the other psalmists were transparent in their writings. You’ll find over and over again things like “my soul is afflicted within me.” But then you’ll see the writer turn toward God and say, “I will yet hope in You.” How could they do that? Because they knew God. They had remembered the goodness He showed them. They trusted His character when they couldn’t understand anything else.

Third, continue to seek and pray. Ask Him to transform you into His image and to show you His works. Ask for wisdom. He gives it generously. Jesus taught that we should continue to ask, seek, and knock (Matt. 7:7-11). The Father is good, and He will give us the best things—even if those things are not what we anticipated.

Above all, what He wants for you and each of us is to trust Him. When the storms come, when we are trapped in the dark night of the soul that seems to stretch for months or years, He wants us to come to the place where we trust His enough to say, “All I want, all I need is You.” When we are at that place, there is no better place to be.