My experience with faith crises is that they come to those with faith.
For many people who undergo a faith crisis of profound proportions, their whole world comes crashing down; this can become so severe that they wonder if they’ve been betrayed by God himself.
We reason that we are doing our best to fulfill our commitment to Christ, but it doesn’t seem that he is for us, but instead against us.
Unanswered questions nag at our hearts: sucking faith out of us. Is God really who he says he is? Can God do what he says he can do?
I assume that prayer and scripture study has built your testimony in the past, but that you are no longer feeling it abiding within you so powerfully.
These spiritual droughts are not unusual, even if they are frustrating.
How do we deal with this? Following the powerful testimony of Jesus, “the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be with God”. (Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–11.)
Fasting, and visited by the Spirit, Christ was tempted by the devil. A similar account is given of Moses and his theophany .
God knew that the devil, a willing villain, would utilize this moment of Jesus’ physical weakness and exhaustion to tempt him in the wilderness. Satan would consider this “an opportune time,” and he would look for other “seasons” as well. The devil did the tempting.
In each of these cases, relief came relatively quickly through doubling down on faith-building through scriptures (as with Jesus) and crying out to God for deliverance (as with Moses and Joseph).
Scriptures give Christ strength and power to withstand temptation and stand in faith.
That is why faith killing situations usually want to rob us of these two things; reading scripture and praying.
During such trying situations when you feel so low, it could be that the Spirit is working with you and strengthening your faith but you don’t realize it.
Additionally, it is alright to lean on the testimony of others as you continue to strengthen your own. If someone has achieved victory from a situation that seemed impossible before – you too will come through it.
The bible covers countless testimonies of people that were at the wall. Abraham is mentioned several times in the Bible for some of the great things he accomplished, but Romans 4 says that he was saved because of his faith and not because of this works.
Joshua was the general who guided Israel in their victorious battles with the inhabitants of the land. When the walls of Jericho fell, it was because Joshua trusted God and His Word.
Joshua led the nation of Israel as a man of faith. Your faith is not in vain.
Though Gideon was scared, he trusted God to prove His promise. God said they needed a smaller army so that people would know that it was God who won the battle, and not a large army.
The Midianite army had about 135,000 men. Gideon gathered an army of 32,000 men. However, through a selection process, God whittled the Israelite army down to just 300 men.
By faith, Esther boldly revealed her heritage as a child of God’s people, the Jews and stopped wicked Haman’s plan.
For you who is a minister, we spend fully 1/4 of our time in meetings bearing testimony to one another. Why do we do this? So that we can be strengthened by the testimony of others.
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