The Testing of Your Faith
Feeling stuck? When will it end? Is the end within reach? How much longer? Will the pain ever go away? Questions, questions, questions. As a child I once heard a song ‘There are more questions than answers’. As an adult I discovered this is so true.
In the battle against drug addiction, we daily struggle with the aforementioned questions. And the answer is, our faith is on trial. The ‘tests’ that we experience in life are far different from the test that are administered in the secular world. In the secular world we get the lesson and then the test. We go over the lessons study, and here comes the test. In real life, we get the test and then we learn the lesson. There is no study time to prepare for the test of life. And our light affliction is a test before the lesson. The Apostle Paul describes it best in 2 Corinthians 4:17 “For our present troubles (light afflictions) are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.”
Like everything else, whether we get (a) the lesson and then the test or (b) the test and then the lesson; the goal is for promotion. We have to pass the test and cannot move on until we do do. If not we will be retained. In our ‘light affliction’ many of us have been retained, and have to keep taking the test over and over; relapse after relapse, with no end in sight.
Think about this. Our thoughts have become our enemy. In 1 Corinthians 13: 11 it states, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” It is time to put away childish things. Grow up! Remember the questions at the beginning of the blog? How long? The answer is left up to us.
Our tests are really the trying of our faith. But look at the results of the trying of our faith. James 1:3 says, “Knowing this, that the testing of your faith produces patience. Yes…patience is the answer to our struggles. In Philippians 4:6-7 it says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
All of my past clients who have been blessed and benefited from my many lectures would recall that I consistently say, “All the answers we seek are in the infallible word of God in the Bible.” So if we want to seek wisdom into our addiction but remain close-minded it’s all on us. Our egos will keep us in the mess that we are in; because we do not want to submit to anything, and hide behind the labels of atheists, and agnostic. We know you are fooling only ourselves; be open -minded and freely walk into our destiny. Stop fighting! We cannot, we will not win!
I close with Proverbs 3:5-6 which states, “5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Once again, a promise from the Promise-Keeper.
Meditate on this. Let this marinate in our souls as we seek the answers and make the required changes. In summary we are to (1) Grow up (2) Be anxious for nothing (3) Make our requests known unto God with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, and (4) Trust in the Lord.
Remember that nothing changes if nothing changes, and the same person will always use.
Have a Blessed day in the Lord. We all deserve it.
From the desk of Andy Ansola