Perseverance?

On my way to church this morning, something weighed on me that rears itself from time to time. I am not sure I can accurately describe it.

It seems that often, when I begin to feel comfortable with my faith, my faith lessens. I begin to feel confident about my direction and shortly thereafter, I lose some of the joy of my salvation. This sort of destroys the so-called joy of Christianity, as I always end up doubting my faith, and then doubling down on the faith. It’s cyclical.

I wonder if this, once again, is God’s hand at work; making sure I don’t ever feel confident but remain clinging to Him. Going back to a previous post about answered prayers, I can remember during my deepest despair, when I was just beginning to seek after Christ, I prayed earnestly that I never be able to forget that feeling of despair.

Can you hear the conversation in my mind? “Well, I got this faith thing going now. Perhaps I should stay up late watching a movie, rather than put myself to bed with the Word” (as I do every night). You can? Good, because I have this conversation with myself quite often. It amazes me that even as I am aware of the tremendous act of grace that God showed me by revealing Himself to me, that I could ever think that I would take this grace for granted.  You see, I know me. If God ever let me, I would forget about Him within the hour.

I am discovering that the life of a Christian is not easy, is not without conflict. With each new conflict I RUN back to the cross. I expect this will define the rest of my days.

So is Christianity a joy? Yes. It is a joy when I dwell on things to come. Is Christianity also a burden? Equally yes, in my opinion.

I don’t know why God would have me to write (type) these thoughts. Perhaps they will be of some value to someone. Perhaps it is just to help me understand what I struggle with. All I know is that I will continue to do it as long as I feel things weighing on me.