When I Don’t Believe What I Believe

I believe a lot of good things. The problem is that I don’t really believe them.

Take God’s power. I know all about it, at least in theory. Paul says us that the same “great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” is at work in us, and Paul prays that our hearts would be enlightened to see this (Ephesians 1:16-23). Yet when I come across a problem, I somehow find my heart wondering if God is up to the challenge. I don’t really believe what I believe.

Or take God’s goodness. Mark Altrogge posted a quote from John Flavel yesterday:

Surely if [God] would not spare his own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.

I believe this! But somehow I don’t really seem to believe this when I’m going through difficult times.

Perhaps some of our biggest steps take place when we learn to somehow believe what we already believe. Jack Miller, author of The Heart of a Servant Leader

, believed in the Holy Spirit and in his own weakness, but it was only when we hit a crisis that he really came to grasp these truths, and it changed his life and ministry.

Lord help me believe what I claim to believe.