Tough Times? Keep the Faith.

This week found our family, like so many others, concerned over a hospitalized loved one. As we gathered and prayed, news swirled around us of widespread sickness and severe shortages of people to help. In the smallish town hospital where our loved one is being treated, 98 nurses are absent due to illness. Everyone is struggling.

While we monitor the day-to-day medical details from a distance, we find ourselves having to press in harder and harder as the news goes from good  great  good  no-so-good. We’re on the roller coaster of progress and regress of our loved one’s health. As I encourage those around me, a phrase keeps swirling in my head . . . “Keep the faith.” I’ve heard this phrase since I was a child. I just learned that it was most likely originally intended to remind us to stay strong in our Christian beliefs but was coined publicly in 1967 by a civil rights leader.

It is so very easy to fall victim to the emotions that come with up and down news, up and down situations, up and down life. It is during those times that we have to remember who we are and to Whom we belong. It is in those midnight moments, when all seems bleak, that we need to dig really deep to keep our faith.

What does that mean for you? How do you keep your faith and remind yourself Who is

really in control?

I remember years ago, I was in one of the deepest crises of my life which seemed endless. I did what I knew to do. I prayed to God and listened for Him to guide me. He kept saying to my spirit, “Be still” (Proverbs 46:10) and “Wait on me”. So,I did for a really long time. I cried out to Him, “How much longer, Lord?” Again, His words spoke to my spirit, “I have equipped you for this. You have all that you need.”

The God of the universe reminded me that I knew how to keep my faith strong. I was to read His Word, to pray to Him in gratitude and trust, knowing that He was working things out for my good – in His timing, not mine. I listened for His voice more than I ever had and I heard from Him more than I ever had before.

In our deepest despair, it is hard to remember that God has equipped you for the struggle and that you have all you need. That is the time when you need to remember it the most and put it into action. We are to turn our fear into faith, our worry into worship, and to NOT trust what we see around us, but what God is doing in the heavenly realms. In the book of Romans (8:28), the Apostle Paul tells us, “And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into his plans.” (TLB)

If you don’t need this advice right now, file it away for future use. Don’t crumble, don’t

collapse, don’t give up! Almighty God has equipped you to keep the faith until He, in His perfect

timing, “turns beauty from ashes”. (Isaiah 61:3)

Sylvia Gaston
Family Ministry Pastor