Preparing For the Storms
Just when your faith seems the strongest, spiritual storms will knock you down. Are you prepared for the coming storms?
Spiritual Highs, Spiritual Lows
The one certainty in life, as Christians, is that there will be times of spiritual highs and spiritual lows. You will have times when your faith is on fire, and you experience pure joy. Faith comes easy at this point. But then life shifts, and the darkness returns. Your faith slips as sadness, anger, frustration, and despair take root, which makes prayer, worship, and times of fellowship become a chore.
St. Ignatius had a term for each of these. He called those times of closeness to God consolation and those times of distance desolation. We’ll dive deeper into both at some point in the future. But for now, let’s discuss those spiritual lows you experience.
A False Sense of Security
When life is going your way, it’s easy to fall into a false sense of security. Things are going well. As you spend more time in prayer, reading Scripture, attending church, and spending time with other Christians, your faith feels untouchable.
There is an immense joy that seems unbreakable.
Inevitably, something will come along to break the unbreakable. A death in the family, a broken relationship, financial troubles, or an addiction relapse will seemingly erase all the progress you have made spiritually.
Sometimes, it doesn’t take a major calamity to shake our faith. You might have a disagreement with someone at church or in your Bible study group. News of another church leader being corrupt will challenge what you believed. Or it might simply be boredom.
Whatever the cause, you begin to question everything that you once held dear. Your breakable faith now seems fragile.
How to Prepare for the Storms
You cannot wait until the storm has arrived to start preparing. It’s too late. Long before the storm is on its way, you must prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Take the steps now to be ready for whatever challenges may come.
The primary goal of Directional Faith is to help you accomplish that. You must:
Develop a closer relationship with God
Learn to discern God’s will for your life
Examine your day through prayer
Build trust with the Holy Spirit to guide you through the dark times
Of those goals, building a deeper relationship with God - a closeness that can weather any storm - must be your first priority. You must go beyond believing in God to having faith in God.
But simply knowing the storms are coming is the first step in the battle. Together, we’ll talk about what steps to take from there.
A New Resource
To help you grow in your relationship with God, I have been working on the 30-Day Faith Challenge - a series of short daily devotional videos focused on loving God, loving yourself, and loving others. Find them on your favorite social media site. Go to:
Watch the intro video here.
