Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all very much and know you all are in my thoughts and prayers.
This week I thought I’d share some reflections and lessons I’ve been learning over the past couple months. I have learned a lot about what it means to truly put your faith in God and his goodness. Maybe you have heard the comparison of growing your faith to building or “growing” muscle. In order to grow it, you need to exercise and work out. What I’ve learned recently is that this muscle of faith isn’t built up for you to show off and flex when things are going well and easy. You build it so that when you are unable to move, it takes over and does the heavy lifting for you. You train your faith in seasons of calm and rest so that when you encounter seasons of chaos and uncertainty, it will do what it was meant to do: fix your mind on the grace and goodness of God.
I would describe this season of life as one of chaos and uncertainty. A large part of this is due to the challenges that I’ve been facing at work at my family’s restaurant. To summarize, we are short staffed and trying our best to make it through this season of limited seating capacity. It is a big challenge for my family and me. There are days when I leave work frustrated and hopeless. However, it is in the midst of this frustration that this faith muscle starts doing some heavy lifting. Deep down, I know that He is still in control. Sometimes I don’t want to find the good in this situation. It seems more gratifying to be frustrated and angry. But, again, God is faithful to remind me, whether it’s through a conversation with someone or just a gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit, that He is with me. He reminds me that his grace is truly sufficient even in the midst of COVID.
During this time of being apart and not being able to meet together as a church family, we are given the opportunity to see how strong our faith is. We don’t have in place the normal structures like gathering on Sundays or Bible studies. It has given me a chance to take ownership of my faith in a new way. It’s not something I would have hoped for necessarily, but God is faithful to do what he always does: bring restoration and goodness to all situations. My prayer is that we all will see his faithfulness in a new way this week.