3. What do I do when my faith grows stale?
2/13/21
Hello my friends and Happy Valentine’s Day!
I think most of us can agree when I say that a pretty common fear we share is of boredom or complacency. We love new beginnings, new things, new experiences. And it is important to have those things as often as we can! It can prove difficult to keep digging into the same concept or relationship or place you’ve been digging into for years on end and still find new ways to come up with that same feeling. With that, I would like to explore the popular understanding of faith today and how broad it could truly be.
If God can create enough places, creatures, space, and concepts for us to not only stay entertained for the entirety of time but to never even come close to learning everything there is to know, then why do we think that our relationship with Him could possibly grow stale? Why do we look at a relationship with God as such a singular thing? He is in every aspect of our lives, of the people we love, of the world around us. We can constantly learn more about God by simply engaging with the beauty he created for us to enjoy.
In the same way that God seeks relationship with us to experience our lives alongside us, God wants us to do the same with Him. It is a two way street! The difference between a person, place, or concept and the creator of the universe is exactly that- we can experience and learn about God in every facet of our existence whereas everything else we will experience on earth is experienced in a singular sense. Which is why I believe it is so hard to wrap our heads around the fact that a relationship with God is not merely one of prayer, church, worship, reading the scriptures, and serving the community. God is also the God of concert experiences, long car rides, camping trips, silly card games, movie nights, smells, textures, weather, stars, even the air we breath. We interact with God on multiple levels every moment of our existence because we can taste, see, hear, touch, and smell. And that doesn't even cover our cognitive abilities to think and investigate things! We have topics like philosophy, medicine, science, math, language.
Satan loves for us to place God in a box. He loves for us to think that the only way we can be “good Christians” is to pray 3 times a day, wake up at 5am each morning to read the Bible for an hour, etc. And while I am absolutely not dismissing those things, we are all unique individuals. We have different styles of communication, different love languages, hormones, traits, and personalities. If there isn’t a one size fits all in the educational system, why is there such a narrow view of what it looks like to be a follower of Christ? And more importantly, why do we allow that view to divide us and guilt us if we don’t meet the standard?
Now, let me clarify a few things-
God sent us his Holy Spirit so that we can talk to him as the day is long. Sometimes I walk outside in the morning and take a deep breath and thank Him for another day as well as the gift of fresh air. God is relational and I think of Him as one who is with me always. In a formal setting, I begin prayer and end it with more structure; things such as “Dear God” and “Amen.” But throughout the day, I just talk to Him. Sometimes in my head and sometimes out loud when I am driving. Call me crazy, we all do it haha. But the difference is that many of us think when we talk to ourselves that we are just talking to ourselves- I would challenge that slightly. Maybe we know in the back of our minds that even when we are alone, we are never actually alone. And when we talk to ourselves, someone is actually listening. And that someone is the One who wove you together.
Some people function well at 5am and have a lifestyle consistent with being able to maintain that time frame. That is amazing! But, it is not for everyone. Some days you will find yourself in prayer multiple times and on other days you will not. While it’s important to notice things like that to an extent, it isn’t a points system. It’s more like hopping into bed at night with someone and not saying goodnight or good morning or having conversation with them for several days and yet existing right alongside them. That is much more unnatural to imagine, isn’t it? That’s because it seems impossible to do unless you hate the other person and go out of your way to avoid all but the necessary. Some of us hate God and do function that way, but it doesn’t change the fact that He never leaves. No matter how far away you push your relationship with Him, he is existing right alongside you in every moment.
Godly community is invaluable, service to the world is invaluable, prayer and scripture are necessary and more powerful than we even realize. In fact, I would argue that the Bible in and of itself is an example of this multi-dimensional concept I’ve been going into. It is a living word that God uses to speak to us right here and now, but it is also a documentation of the world and history and other cultures/practices/languages. Some of the books are poetic in nature, some are letters. There isn’t just one level on which we can engage with the Bible and we are doing ourselves a disservice if we don’t interact with it on all levels. And if anything sums up my blog today, it is that exactly.
To continue on that last point, we find our relationship with God growing stale when we make Him one-dimensional; when we only seek Him in prayer or only acknowledge Him when we are hiking in the mountains: we need both and more. We grow stale when we turn discipline into a systematic point and reward system instead of using it as a tool to grow in deeper relationship with Him. God is actually triune in nature; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Talk about confusing! Christianity is a monotheistic belief system, meaning it worships one singular deity. And yet, God is three parts. Mathematically, that is like saying 300% = 100%. I am far from an expert on Christianity, but that one will never cease to boggle my mind a bit. For today’s sake, it further shows the relational nature of our creator and the complexity that is God.
Faith can be shaken by many things and, in fact, it will be. Faith is not faith without testing. But the enemy seeks to reduce God in whatever ways he can and he seeks to let our feelings dictate God’s involvement in our lives when God is much bigger than that. We may feel stale and our prayers may feel empty, but that isn’t the absence of God. It isn’t fun to go through periods of time like that, but it is a part of the testing we all go through. Pray through it and have others pray for you too. And know that this blog barely scratches the surface of this topic so reach out to me please! I would love to be there for you in whatever ways I can be. Your thoughts mean the world to me and so does your support. I hope you have a great week. :)
Till next Sunday,
-Lexi Cummings
PS: MY DEBUT SINGLE IS OUT NOW GO STREAM IT PLZ. <3
