Exercise. Sometimes I feel like it’s a four-letter word. I really hate to exercise. At least I really hate to do exercise routines. Doesn’t matter if it’s at a gym or at home. I hate it. But if I want to have a healthy body, I need exercise. If I want to have a heart that’s disease free, I need to do some cardio. If I want muscles in good shape, I need to lift some weights. If I want joints that are as pain free as possible as I age, I need to stretch and work on my flexibility. And the truth is that if I want my spirit in tip-top shape, I need to exercise my faith!
Faith is like a spiritual muscle. If you don’t use it, it will shrivel up, and soon you won’t even be able to do the normal everyday stuff you took for granted before. If you exercise it, though, that muscle will get stronger so that the things that used to send you packing are now no big deal. The beauty of exercising our faith muscle is that God will put us into situations where we have no choice but to exercise it. We can’t sit as spiritual couch potatoes for long before God steps in. We can fight against what God is doing. We can actively refuse to grow in our faith or use our faith effectively, but we can’t skip the spiritual trips to the gym so to speak.
Spiritual training is important. 1 Timothy 4:8 (AMPC) says: “For physical training is of some value (useful for a little), but godliness (spiritual training) is useful and of value in everything and in every way, for it holds promise for the present life and also for the life which is to come.” God has given each of us a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). It’s His gift to us. When we use that measure to accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. Then we get access to the seeds of the fruits of the Spirit.
All the potential for the fruit of the Spirit is already present in our own spirits when we are born again. We have the seed form of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Right now I have a packet of radish seeds in my kitchen cabinet. They’re a part of a science experiment that goes with our science curriculum for our 3rd grade homeschool science classes. They’ve been in my cabinet for quite a while now. I haven’t done anything with them. Now, how silly would it be for me to complain to God–or to anyone else for that matter–about my lack of radishes when I’ve left the seeds in the packet in my kitchen cabinet?
It’d be pretty silly, right? And yet, this is what we do when it comes to the fruits of the Spirit all the time. We complain to God about our lack of faith. We demand He increase our faith. We beg Him for more faith. When all the while we have that seed sitting in the packet on a shelf in our spirit and we’ve done nothing with it. That’s why exercising our faith is so important. Just like we need to plant a seed, water it, and cultivate it to see it grow to maturity, we have to use the faith God has given us, exercise it, and grow it in order to see it grow to maturity.
So how do we exercise our faith? Faith is exercised during trials. Faith is at work when we can not see the path ahead of us. When the way is clear and the sailing is smooth, faith is not being used. We’re walking through life by sight. We’re probably trusting in our own strength and ingenuity to get us through our day-to-day challenges. Hebrews 11:1 says that “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” If we can see it, then it isn’t faith. When we go through trials, though, that path ahead of us is not so clear. There might be a storm brewing up around us. There may be chaos and confusion. We may have to even walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. That’s okay. When we can’t see, we’re walking by faith.
2 Corinthians 5:7 says “For we live by faith and not by sight.” This whole not being able to see clearly in front of us but walking the path anyway? That’s the way we’re supposed to live our everyday lives. When we’re in the midst of a trial, we tend to pull into ourselves. We isolate. We shut down. We want to curl into a ball and pray for it to be all over. But that’s not exercising our faith. We have to keep walking. Psalm 23 says: “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death…” not “Yea, though I park” or “Yea, though I camp” or even “Yeah, though I attempt to avoid at all costs by refusing to go forward.”
And the thing is just like God allows life to bring the spiritual gym to us, God acts as our personal trainer and coach. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” God is leading us through the entire process. You see faith is an absolute certainty and trust in God. Faith believes that God can and God will. That’s the only way to get through the Valley. Instead of isolating and turning into ourselves, we have to stretch out our hand, grab hold of God, and keep walking.
I’m terrified of snakes. Whenever my family went to the zoo or any type of animal park where these lovely reptiles might reside, I would avoid them at all costs. On one trip, however, my younger sister got tired of always having to skip the reptile house because of my fear. She insisted on going in, and that meant we all had to go in together. I didn’t want to go in. I was terrified of going in. I was sure those snakes were going to miraculously get out of their glass enclosures and come after me. But you know who I trusted to keep my safe? My father. My father was the one with us on that trip, and I knew that my father loved me. I knew he would never ever let anything harm me in any way. I trusted that my dad would never allow any snake to get near me, even if he had to fight them all himself. He was going to keep me safe. So I closed my eyes, grabbed a hold of my father’s hand, and I marched myself through that reptile house trying desperately to block out the sounds of hissing in my ears.
There are times in life when God asks me to do the same thing. He brings me to a really dark and scary place. It’s a place I don’t want to go into. It’s a risk I don’t want to take. It’s a calling I feel super unqualified for. Whatever it looks like on the outside, what it really is is an opportunity for me to stretch outside my comfort zone, exercise my faith, and grow. So when I’m standing at the edge of that path, I have a choice…just like I had a choice at that zoo.
1. I can stay where I am. Standing outside that reptile house, I could have refused to go in. I could have told my father that, although I absolutely trusted in his love for me and in his ability to keep me safe, and in the fact that he would keep me safe, I was not going to set foot inside that reptile house. I would have been expressing faith in my father, but I wouldn’t have been using that faith. I wouldn’t have been putting it into practice. Ultimately, that kind of faith is hollow. It’s fragile. It doesn’t hold up. It does me know good.
And the other thing? The reptile house was the only way to get to the things I really wanted to see and experience. If I chose to stay at the brink and not go through, I would miss out on the rest of the zoo. I’d have to spend the rest of the day waiting around and hoping that my family could find a way to circle back around at the end of their day to find me and take me home with them.
2. I can move forward. James 2:14-17 tells us that faith without works is dead. Faith isn’t a passive thing. It isn’t lip service. Faith requires us to act. It demands to be used. Faith wants to be tested and put to work. Standing outside that reptile house, I chose to put my faith in my father to use. I put it into practice. I knew my father. I knew his love for me. I knew his ability. I knew his will. I took all that knowledge, and I acted on it. I took hold of his hand. I shut my eyes. And I started walking.
And you know what? As uncomfortable as the experience was with all those hissing sounds and all that fear in the pit of my stomach, I was safe with my father. On the other side of that reptile house, when I opened my eyes, I felt a bit stronger. My father was proud of me for trying. My faith in him was solidified a bit more. And now I could go onto all the things I really wanted to do and see and experience.
1 Peter 1:7 tells us that trials come “so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Faith wants to be proven. It needs to be refined. It needs to be put to the test. Faith needs to be exercised just like our muscles need to be exercise.
But you don’t go from couch potato to running a marathon in a single day. There’s a process to getting physically fit, and there’s a process to getting spiritually fit. Before you begin to exercise, you need to warm up your muscles. Before you face a trial, you need to have to “warm up” your faith.
2 Peter 1:5-8 says: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
- Spend time in God’s Word. Reading scripture, studying scripture, and memorizing scripture form the foundation of your faith. How can you have faith in something you don’t know anything about? In order to have faith in God, you have to know who God is. You have to believe that He loves you. You have to believe that He is able. You have to know His will. The best way to do that is by reading His Word.
- Spend time talking to God. In the foxhole is not the time to work on your prayer life. You need to form the habit of talking to God regularly. Prayer lets us tell God all about what’s going on in our lives, and it lets God speak to us about the things we’re going through. We need that two way communication when we’re walking through the Valley. We need to be able to hear His voice in order to know that we are following Him through the Valley.
- Spend time speaking God’s Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). One of the ways we exercise our faith is by speaking. Faith talks. My pastor says, “Faith doesn’t speak to God about the size of our mountain; faith speaks to the mountain about the size of our God.” If you aren’t used to speaking out scriptures over your life when times are good, how will you be able to speak out scriptures that you need to take a stand on when you’re in the midst of a trial?
- Spend time in worship. Worship is a great way to refocus our perspective. It’s the weapon God often asks us to use when He has us in a period of waiting. When we cultivate an attitude of worship, warfare gets a bit easier.
Just like a muscle requires regular use to get stronger, faith requires regular use to grow. We may not be able to bench press 100 lbs the first day at the gym, but as we keep stretching ourselves and keep working, one day we find that we can lift that amount easily. When we first face a battle in our lives, it’s going to be rough going, but as we push through and exercise our faith and keep walking, that temptation and trial will get a little easier and a little easier until we no longer even consider it a temptation anymore. The goal is to reach maturity in Christ, and the only way to do that is to keep walking and keep growing.
A Beautiful Mess 