The pavement on the Christian road of life.
Short and sweet … easy to rattle off when the trouble belongs to someone else, isn’t it? But it doesn’t take long for a genuine Christian to discover that life isn’t a bed of roses. And all of a sudden “faith” becomes a rather thorny issue: is it the same faith that brought us to Christ? Or was it simply an emotional “bridge” that carried us over a time of trouble in our life?
Genuine faith is a commitment to the God who saved us in the first place. It is a choice of the will empowered by the Holy Spirit that gives confidence to our Christian experience. The apostle Paul referred to this in his 2nd letter to Timothy: “But I am not ashamed, because I know the One I have believed in and am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12 HCSB).
So what about you? Are you a “grin and bear it” sort of Christian? Or have you really placed the length and breadth of your life in God’s Hands … by faith.
“You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6,7 HCSB)
“Faith is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience” (James Russell Lowell)
Finding Time for God 