The Vacillating Battle of Faith JAMES 1:2-8

Have you ever felt as if your Christian life swings back and forth like a pendulum between faith and doubt? This is a fairly common problem, especially when trying situations come our way. Although we know what God’s Word says, our feelings tell us something totally different.

The question is not if we will experience this, but rather, how long we will remain on one side or the other. Three factors determine whether we lean toward faith or doubt: the strength of our faith at the time of the trial; our knowledge and understanding of God; and our experience with failure or success in past trials, especially those of the same nature.

To help you grow in faith, it’s important to change not only your focus but also your thinking and listening practices.

• Set your mind on God’s promises, not on the impossibility of your situation.
• Set Trust in His divine nature instead of your feelings about the circumstances.
• Set Seek to view the difficulty from His perspective instead of giving it your own limited interpretation.
• Set Listen to the Holy Spirit—not Satan’s whispered lies, which stir up uncertainties.
• Set Rehearse the Lord’s past faithfulness to you instead of dwelling on your previous failures.

The key to stabilizing faith lies in choosing to believe God, regardless of the situation. Only then will it be possible to bring natural feelings of doubt, anxiety, fear, anger, or confusion into submission to what we know to be true—that the Lord is faithful and will see us through every situation.

Complain Less, Give Thanks More

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men!

Psalms 107:8

If we complained less and were more thankful, we would be happier, and God would be more glorified. Every day thank God for ordinary mercies—we refer to them as ordinary, and yet they are so priceless that without them we are ready to perish. Let us thank God for our eyes with which we see the sun, for the health and strength to walk around, for the bread we eat, for the clothes we wear. Let us thank Him that we are not among the hopeless or confined among the guilty; let us thank Him for liberty, for friends, for family associations and comforts. Let us praise Him, in fact, for everything that we receive from His generous hand, for although we deserve little, He provides an abundance.

The sweetest and the loudest note in our thankful songs should be of redeeming love. God’s redeeming acts toward His chosen are forever the favorite themes of their praise. If we know what redemption means, let us not withhold our hymns of thanksgiving. We have been redeemed from the power of our corruptions, lifted from the depth of sin in which we were naturally plunged. We have been led to the cross of Christ—our shackles of guilt have been removed. We are no longer slaves, but children of the living God, and can anticipate the time when we will be presented before the throne without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Even now by faith we wrap ourselves in the fair linen that is to be our everlasting array and rehearse our unceasing thankfulness to the Lord our Redeemer. Child of God, can you remain silent? Stir yourselves with thoughts of your inheritance, and lead your captivity captive, crying with David, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”¹ Let this new month begin with new songs.

¹Psalm 103:1