Spiritual Muscles

I had had a tough week and as always I was inclined to complain a lot about the issues that I was dealing with.

One morning I was thinking and praying for a family who were dealing with the death of a family member and trying to cope with ill family members at the same time. God tapped me on the shoulder and I realised that I really was very blessed. I apologised to God once again for being such a grumbler.

I was thinking about the many people that I know who face so many problems day after day, week after week, year after year and yet these people are not broken they are strong witnesses for their Lord. How do they stay so spiritually fit Lord, I asked, as I debated this in my head? They are strong because they have to exercise their faith muscles all the time. They have to depend on me all the time for their strength. It was then that I realised that they continue to grow because they are having to exercise their faith muscles all the time.

We only get fitter if we continue to exercise our bodies. We have all seen the stories of elite athletes who struggle to stay fit after they retire from their sporting careers. We have also heard about people who have worked very hard over an extended period of time to lose weight or got very fit and then suffered an illness or injury and slipped rapidly into their previous unhealthy condition. This has happened because they have been unable to keep up their regime.

The same thing could happen to us spiritually, not because we have retired but because we have stopped stretching ourselves spiritually.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1.

We only gain spiritual strength by continuing to exercise our faith muscles every minute of the day. I was about to ask God to give me this strength when I stopped myself. You might ask why I stopped myself. Well, the reason is this. If I am going to ask for that strength it will mean that I will be faced with many more problems and issues that I am not sure I want to face right now.

Can I gain spiritual strength without extra problems and issues that force myself to depend on our God, I’m thinking, probably not. This is why James tells us to be thankful our trials and tribulations that come our way because they are the spiritual weights that allow us to get spiritually fit.

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” James 1:2-4.