Too many people who are believers have a misunderstanding about what it means to truly be a believer. Have you ever had anyone tell you that the life of a believer is easy? Have they ever told you that it only means prosperity, joy, rainbows and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I know I’m mixing up stories and fables but that is a fairy tale for sure.

The truth is, in the word of God it says, “in this world you will have trouble” but that you should take heart because Christ overcame the world.  Clearly, the life of a believer is not easy. There’s another scripture that says wide is the road that leads to destruction. It’s the easy path, kind of like the paved Interstate. However, the path to God is narrow. It’s no easy road. Our walk with the Lord takes effort and struggle but why? Why can’t it be easy? Isn’t our God loving? Does God loving us mean that he makes everything feel good and be effortless for us? Does it mean he removes all troubles and pain? No, it does not.  

You see that “loving” God that many people believe in.  You know the one that makes life easy, who always does things the way you want them to be done, and who is the God that you can demand things from or determine his will, that’s not who God is.

God works with wisdom. His thoughts are so far above what we can really understand. Here’s some of the wisdom that’s godly wisdom. In order for your faith to grow, it has to be tested or tried. That the trials of life are really the proving of our faith. Faith is very much like a muscle. How do your muscles grow stronger? Only through resistance, effort, or work. The more we walk in faith, the more we struggle and preserve, the stronger our faith can become.

Let me give you a real-life example from my own life. I have faced many challenges when it comes to work over the years. As a single mother needing to provide for my family I see God as my sole sufficiency. Sometimes the way he provides isn’t the way that I expected or anticipated. When I had to transition from my original career and had no idea what I was going to go into, that was the first big challenge of my faith in God as my provider. The day after I got my final paycheck and didn’t know where the next would come from, I received word that I had gotten a job. It was just exactly what I needed. I knew that my need was growing so I prayed for God too provide in the future. Again, God opened a door to an opportunity for more resources and provision.  

The path was not easy, and I could not have predicted how God would come through, but he did. In this new opportunity there would be multiple times where my faith was challenged again. You see it was project work. The thing about projects is that they only last for short periods of time. In order to continue to have employment every time a project would end, I would have to bring my need to the Lord, believe he would answer, wait on him to move, trust in his faithfulness, and finally, hope and pray for God to come through again. Now I know the truth is even if I had one job that was completely “stable,” I would still have to depend on God because there’s nothing certain in this world and nothing lasts forever here. Only God is eternal. Still though having my livelihood regularly depend on the opportunities being provided by God has shown me again and again how God comes through. Every time that muscle of my faith was tried, it became stronger.

The reality is my faith wasn’t dependent on God answering how I wanted him to answer. I recognized and realized that there might be a time when God might choose a whole different way than what I thought or expected. I was thankful for the giver, God, not what he gave me. My point though is that this trying of my faith is what caused it to increase. I began to see that there was nothing that God could not do or had not already provided for. I begin to believe that he would give me manna for the day. I might not have more than I need or all my desires. Still God made sure that I had enough.  Everything I need for life and godliness as his word promises. 

The walk of faith is challenging when you are a believer. Between finances, physical ailments, loss, emotional struggles, life itself, and relationships there is constant struggle and opportunities to have to depend on God. You know that old hymn “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.”  

“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I’ve proved him over and over. Jesus, Jesus, Precious Jesus, O for grace to trust you more.” 

Our prayer shouldn’t be for all the trouble and struggles to end, because that is not how the story goes in this life. Not how it was promised to be. Our prayer should instead be for the grace to trust God more no matter what. For faith that can look at the mountain and say be moved and know that God can throw it into the sea. Yet still believe when God chooses not to sometimes.  You don’t get to that kind of faith without a great deal of proving him over and over and opportunities to strengthen your faith muscle.

Maybe you have had great faith as a believer, and you’ve spoken to the mountain, and it didn’t move. Maybe you’ve lost faith, and you started to see the mountains as bigger or greater than God. We have to understand that God doesn’t always move the mountains, sometimes he carries us over them, walks with us over them, or moves us. We have to have the faith that says that I believe in God’s goodness even when he doesn’t feel good. Even when he doesn’t move as I want him to. Even though I don’t understand in this moment, O for grace to trust him more.

This is too much that he’s asking of us you might say. I’d rather just go on the wide road, because the narrow one is hard. It doesn’t feel good to be the clay being slapped down on the wheel and worked by the hand of our Savior even if it is a loving hand. But I would say to you today His promise of joy is true even in those moments, the difficult ones.  You see the joy he gives rises above the struggle and it’s still there for you no matter your circumstances. I would say to you that you can still be at peace because his peace surpasses all understanding and exists not because everything is right in this world but because God is good even when other things aren’t. You can rest in the boat in the storm, he is good no matter what you are facing and he is with you always. I would say to you that our temporary sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to come. That as the Bible says, “No eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no mind has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Our faith is not in a trouble-free existence. Our faith is not in an easy road.  Our faith is in God, the rock, that is so firm and strong that no matter the category of the hurricane that life barrels at us, we will not fall.  We will not be destroyed.  What is your faith built on? 

Have you built your hope or your faith on the lie that God is here to make life easy for you? Have you falsely believed that God exists to give you all of your desires, selfish or otherwise? Have you mistakenly thought you could have it you way in life and order life from God as you wish it to be? Have you completely missed the point of having a relationship with God and what that relationship looks like? He is the Potter, and you are the clay. Broken, melted, molded, worked, designed, crafted at his pleasure and by his grace.  Worked by his hands that know when to do each of those things.  Loved by a heart that loves us so much that he wouldn’t give us less or make us less than he knows we could be. 

I pray today that you see yourself clearly there on his wheel and that you allow yourself to be moldable clay in his hands even when it doesn’t feel good. That you will walk on the narrow road because you know it leads to life, even though it’s not an easy road.  Finally, that your faith will be in the goodness and faithfulness of God, not in your circumstances or what you hope your life will be.  True faith in a truly wise God who is lovingly and patiently waiting for you to choose to be the moldable clay in his hands. Today, I pray for you, Grace to trust him more and a life of true faith.