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Why It's Okay That Your Faith Sucks

 

“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.”

2 Timothy 2:13 (KJV)

 

In the beginning of my walk, I was so inconsistent with God that I felt like He was straight up pulling away from me.

I would feel ashamed, because I would wake up feeling like Superman, believing that I was going to read the Bible and truly change my life.

By the end of the night, I was feeling defeated and worse off than when I had started.

Paul says, in such a beautiful passage, that although we may not believe, God stays faithful to us.

I used to hear this term all the time: "God is faithful."

It wasn't until I realized how unfaithful I was that I was able to grasp the true nature of this verse.

Although we deny God daily and even walk away from Him at times, God never walks away from us.

God never loses faith, and He truly loves us and stands by His word.

This broke my brain.

I thought I was going to get rewarded for my consistency, but God's faithfulness was never rooted in my consistency or my dedication, but in His own nature.

For Him to stop being faithful would be for Him to stop being God, which is impossible.

I remember crying over this verse and feeling so grateful for this heavenly Father that we all share.

I stopped living a performative Christian life after realizing this.

Whether I had a strong week or a weak week, I recognized that He was always strong and His grace was sufficient no matter what.

The most comforting thing about God is that He can never deny Himself, and to not help us would be Him denying Himself.

Instead of making me feel like I can just sin freely and do whatever I want, it made me thank Him, and that love and gratitude in my heart cast out the need to want to sin.

I felt almost like I was truly betraying God if I just decided to utilize His faithfulness for my comfort.

This verse made me realize that God is the burning fire, and although we may flicker, all we need to do is go to Him and reignite that flame.

The amazing thing is that it also points back to the gospel: before I was ever faithful to God, He was faithful to me on that cross 2,000 years ago.

He kept His promise so much so that He died for someone that didn't even know Him, and I think we all share the same story here.

Here's how we walk this out.

1. Stop measuring God by your last 24 hours.

Most of us decide how close God is based on how we did today.

Strong quiet time, He's near. Blew it again, He's disappointed.

That's you projecting your own scorekeeping onto Him.

His nearness isn't a reaction to your performance.

Take Him at His word before you take yourself at your feelings.

2. When you fail, run to Him, not from Him.

Our instinct after failing is to hide until we've cleaned ourselves up enough to face God again.

But you don't reignite a flame by staying away from the fire.

The moment you notice you've flickered, that's your cue to go straight to Him, not wait until you feel worthy.

3. Let His faithfulness make you grateful, not comfortable.

This isn't a license to sin freely because "He'll be faithful anyway."

When you really see what He did, gratitude does the work that guilt never could.

It starts casting out the desire to sin on its own.

Ask God to let His faithfulness produce love in you, and let that love be what changes your behavior.

PRAYER

Precious Lord, I've been measuring Your faithfulness by how well I did today.

When I fail, I feel like You are pulling away from me.

Thank You for staying faithful when my own faith feels weak.

Today I come straight back to You.

Keep me close to You, and let Your faithfulness make me grateful.

Help me trust what You said about Yourself when my feelings tell me something different.

In Jesus' beautiful name we pray. Amen.