Faith Can Be Messy

What if I told you that you that it’s normal for your faith to be “messy.” You may be thinking, how so? Well as I’m walking out my faith, I’m realizing that it doesn’t have to be picture perfect. I’m so sorry if anyone made you feel otherwise. Listen, there was not one perfect person in the Bible (outside of Christ). Even the people listed as models of faith. I don’t know about you but that makes me feel good and it takes off the pressure because it means we don’t have to be perfect and neither does our faith.

There will be days where you wrestle and just not have it in you. There will be days that you feel so strong in your faith that nobody can tell you nothing. And other days where you feel in between. In all honesty, there are days where I have to let God know, my faith is about a “2” right now. But I want to get to a “8.” Do you know he’s like that’s okay because all he needs is a little bit to work with. (Matthew 17:20 talks about this.)

Is it just me or is it easy to have “Sunday” faith? But what about when life happens “Monday through Saturday?” This may not be your story but I grew up thinking that my faith had to look a certain way…pretty close to perfect. Like if my faith wasn’t at 100%, then I didn’t have faith at all. But that’s not true, sis. Faith is literally a decision, not a feeling. When I heard that, it changed my view on faith. It hit different.

One day it may be easy to make that decision and other days, it may take everything in you to trust God. You may feel broken and at your lowest, but you can still be in faith. Why? Because you decided to trust God even when you literally feel weak and could crumble at any moment. Even with tears and questions, you can still have faith. Faith can be messy because we have to navigate our feelings. I’ve had moments where I’m like “God, I really don’t understand what’s going on right now. I’m tired of waiting. I thought it would happen sooner...but I trust you.” It’s all about how we finish. It’s about that “But I trust you.”

Faith can be messy because we as humans have real expectations and when it doesn’t happen when we want it, it can be so so easy to get frustrated or maybe even mad at God. Been there. See, I believe in being fully transparent. So let me give you the real tea sis, if faith were a picture…it would not look like a straight line. There will be hills and valleys. And that’s okay. It’s okay to not be okay. The key is to keep going. You may take a baby step or crawl to keep going because what you’re going through is unbearable. That’s okay, just keep going. Sometimes, faith looks like the decision to keep going. And that’s literally it. With tears in your eyes and pain in your heart, you decide to put one foot in front of the other and move. That’s faith.

Faith can be messy. It’s the “faith walk” and journey that is messy. But here’s the thing. It’s the messiness that strengthens our faith too. Think about it. If everything came easy to us, we wouldn’t need faith. It’s the situations that almost take us out or knock us down that push us into having faith. At least for me, this is the case. Sometimes, if we say we’re going to move in faith…well, we have to have the story to match. And guess what, that story is more than likely not going to be pretty. No pain, no gain…right??

So to anyone reading this who feels like they’ve lost all faith—-I hear you and I definitely feel you. Start with making the decision to keep going. God can meet you there. I actually find that God shows out when we feel at our lowest and I couldn’t figure out why for the longest…Until I realized, he wants us to get to the end of ourselves so that we can start trusting Him. I can’t tell you what God is up to in your life because I’m not him…But i do know this….

“I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” (Jeremiah 29:11)