IMPERATIVE: FORTIFY YOUR FAITH
Jude 1:20 NABRE
Build yourselves up in your most holy faith!
One of the most crucial lessons I’ve learned over the last 50 years of my spiritual journey is that I must continually build and fortify my faith every day of my life.
Our faith is under attack in some way on a daily basis. The devil, the world, and the flesh are relentless. There is always something beating against our faith. Certainly some are more intense than others, with some more severe than at other times. But the fact remains, not a day has gone by in the last 50 years that my faith was not under assault in some way. Every day something is trying to tear down our faith.
Difficult trials and severe circumstances have been almost unceasing over the course of my 50 year journey with God. They have tested my faith, wearied my faith, beat against my faith, and tried it severely.
Here are some of the indispensable, habitual things I do to fortify my faith. They have kept my faith from crumbling. These things have kept my faith alive. They have strengthened it, and given me the perspective I so often needed to keep going through the most difficult and daunting of circumstances.
I often read and reflect on the lives and real-life stories of Old Testament faithwalkers. I humanize their life experiences. I observe and carefully consider what they actually had to endure. Just last week, I reread Jeremiah’s story. I didn’t read the entire book of Jeremiah. I read excerpts of his story, and the grave injustices he endured, the lies spread about him, and what he suffered for his faith and obedience to God. For example, I read how he simply went to inspect a piece of property he had purchased, and while he was on his way the sentry at the gate of the city arrests him, and lies about him to officials, telling them he is defecting to the invading Babylonian army. They throw him in prison as a result of this terrible lie. Over and over again, Jeremiah suffered severely for his faith and obedience to God. These real life Bible stories strengthen my own faith and resolve. They comfort me, as I see others enduring grave injustices and terrible circumstances that many times are similar to my own.
Reading so many Old Testament stories, I am struck by how many times some of these heroic people did exactly what God told them to do, and things got worse for them! Some got better in time, but others simply stayed extremely difficult. Believe it or not, my heart and faith is strengthened and comforted as I identify deeply with their experiences.
I often watch movies and documentaries on the terrible suffering of the Jewish people during WW2. I recently wrote to an older friend, Mordechai in Israel, who is a devout Orthodox Jew, how much I identify with the Jewish people and all they have unjustly suffered and endured. Their relentless persecutions are mind-boggling. These films of their stories, of their homes and property being stolen right out from under them or having their rights stripped away, of the terrible hardships they’ve endured and horrific losses they’ve incurred, bring me comfort, strength, and remind me—I am not alone. I have been deeply moved and inspired by so many of these devout Jews and their enduring faith in God in spite of their horrendous circumstances.
Personally, I’ve often thought about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and his devout Christian Catholic faith, and the horrific ordeal he endured on national television when Anita Hill spread vicious, humiliating lies about him during his 1991 senate confirmation hearings. They treacherously branded him a pervert. I watched as Senator Joe Biden and Senator Patrick Leahy did everything they could to use this woman’s vicious lies to destroy Clarence’s life and reputation, to shame and defame him. His experience was very similar to my own nightmarish ordeal. In fact, during the sinister interrogation I was forced to endure, carried out by the “woke progressive,” black, female attorney, intentionally hired by those who helped destroy my life and reputation, I told her to her face, “All of you are doing to me exactly what Anita Hill and those corrupt senators did to vilify and destroy Clarence Thomas.” I’ve found great strength and encouragement in his devout faith in God despite the relentless lies, persecution, and abuse that’s been inflicted on him the last 34 years, and the damage they’ve done to his life. His enduring faith in God has been a great source of encouragement to me. I have read his biography, and the biographies of others, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Their gut-wrenching ordeals and enduring faith have inspired, strengthened, and fortified my own.
I regularly revisit promises from God’s word that God has impressed on my heart over the years. I keep a close eye on them, reminding myself of what God has promised me he will do. I read my Bible daily, feeding my faith as the scripture tells us, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Just as I need food to live each and every day, so I recall God’s axiom, “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” As Job proclaimed, “I have treasured the words of his mouth, more than my necessary food!”
I often sing songs of faith, either from my early years of church-going and the hymns of faith I heard when I was a boy, or songs from my early Christian journey. I’ve also personally written my own songs. They are like mantras of my own faith. I take out my guitar and play and sing them over and over again. They focus my mind and heart, strengthen my faith, and unleash a spiritual power in my soul.
My prayer life strengthens and fortifies my faith every day. It is a huge influence on my faith. My wife recently mentioned to me that if it were not for my daily times of prayer with her, and the strength they give to her, she is not quite sure how she would have made it through some of these years of unbelievable difficulties we have been enduring.
I often reflect on the life of Jesus, on what he endured and what others did to him, and his resolve to finish what God sent him to do. I’ve reflected countless times how Jesus must have felt to come to his own people, the nation of people he birthed and saved over and over again for thousands of years throughout history, only to have most of them reject him, and treat him like a criminal. How it must have hurt so deeply to have the spiritual leaders of the Judaic religion, that Jesus himself instituted, belittle him, ridicule him, dishonor him, marginalize him, slander him, and oppose him at every turn. His severe mistreatment and endurance in spite of it all strengthens my faith and really comforts my own soul. I “think about all he endured when sinful people did such terrible things to him, so I don’t become weary and give up”.
I often reflect and recount the wonderful things God has done for me in response to my prayers. I review my own God stories, how time and time again, after much suffering and difficulties, God has come through in some way or another and answered my prayers, providing some kind of rescue or amazing provisions and resources.
These are some of the vital practices that have sustained and built my faith over the last 50 years. I hope they will be helpful to you in your own faith journey. It is imperative that you build and fortify your faith every single day, or it will not survive the relentless attacks you will face.
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
