I have faith, faith that sometimes looks an awful lot like fear. Sometimes my “faith” is in the other shoe, and sooner or later, it will drop.
Sometimes I have faith that defies reason.
Sometimes, I have faith to believe impossible things.
Once, an E.R. doctor tried to convince me that I had something very wrong with my body. He had the blood work to prove it. But what he did not have was the knowledge of how stubborn I could be. I spouted out my faith like bullets that day. I declared to the galaxy, and beyond that, I was not sick; I did not have the disease the well-meaning doctor said I had.
Several hours and a couple more tests later, my faith won out over that doctor’s diagnosis to God’s glory!
I have thought a lot about what took place that day in the E.R.
Am I some giant in the world of faith? I do not think so. But, that day, I practiced and worked out my faith. I refused to relent.
It got me thinking about how God has given us all a measure of faith to help us become spiritually strong (Romans 12:3), and God has also given us all muscles in our bodies to help us become physically strong (Gen.1:27).
Not all of us are walking around looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger (he was a big-time bodybuilder back in the day) because we have not spent the time Arnold did on building his muscles.
Could we? Probably, but we have not.
It is the same in building the muscles of our faith.
Peter had BIG spiritual muscles.
Peter was able to tell the lame man to get up and walk because his faith had been exercised and worked out much like the physical muscles of Arnold.
We can have big physical muscles like Arnold, and we can have big faith muscles like Peter, but it will cost us.
In the same way we work to get those big guns or a flattering six pack, getting those big faith muscles will cost us time, energy, and probably a few friends.
It will mean we will have to speak to mountains in our lives, probably more than once, even more than twice, but if we keep speaking, sooner or later, those mountains will move (Matthew 21:21).
Now, I am not saying if you refuse to give in, as I did on that day in the E.R., that you will be able to overturn a doctor’s report, but there is a much larger chance of you turning it around than if you do not speak out.
I stood on the promises of God that day. The doctor looked me in the eye at one point and said, “Look, I believe in faith too, but our tests don’t lie.” Well, God had the final word, and his tests did lie.
The moral of this story is that we all have faith, just like we all have muscles. The determining factor in how big our muscles get and how great our faith becomes will be to the extent of how much we use them and how often we are exercising them.
So, tell me, how big is your faith?
