The Struggles of Searching Faith

What comes to mind when you hear the word "struggle?" The word carries a negative connotation for most of us. When two people are fighting, we call it a struggle. When an assignment is difficult, we say we are struggling to get it done. But struggle is not always bad. In fact, it can be beneficial.

Struggle means we are alive and kicking. Life itself is a struggle. The salmon struggle upstream from the ocean so that they can spawn where their offspring are able to grow up safely. By struggling out of a cocoon, a butterfly develops the strength it needs in its wings so that it can fly. A mother endures the pain of childbirth to bring a new child into the world. Life is all about struggle.

God's children have an ongoing struggle against evil.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving [struggling] against sin;
- Hebrews 12:4

The Hebrew writer takes for granted that Christians are struggling against sin, because that is what Christians do. If we are struggling against sin, that means we are not giving in to it. Are you a struggling Christians? Praise the Lord! Keep struggling.

Faith takes energy, it takes effort.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

- Philippians 2:12

This was written to Christians who already had salvation. How do saved people work out their salvation? Paul was instructing them to work on maintaining their salvation, stay in a perpetually saved condition. Growing faith assures us our salvation is intact. Growing faith is a struggling faith. All this to say, do not assume that because you are struggling you are doing something wrong.

Searching Faith in particular is impossible to accomplish without some kind of struggle. We don't all wrestle with the same issues, but we do all have our struggles. There are four basic categories of struggle one experiences during Searching Faith. By learning these four basic struggles you will be able to help yourself understand the course your own searching needs to take and you will be able to assist others better in their search.

The first one (and these are in no particular order), is:

THE INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE

This is the struggle to answer the question, "Is it true?" This was my personal struggle as a college student. With a surfeit of professors who were evolutionist, humanist, agnostics and pantheists and I holding to an atheistic mindset, it required proof of the truths of Christianity before I would yield. Like Thomas, my attitude was,

So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

- John 20:25

Are you a Thomas too? Some of us are and some are not. Not everyone struggles intellectually. Some do not need a course on Christian apologetics. It is not every searcher who has to be reassured of the existence of God, the evidences for a resurrected Christ or the authentication of the 66 books of the Bible, but some have that struggle and their search is for answers to these questions. If yours is the Intellectual Struggle there is a solution. The solution is, go ahead and test the Bible. Place it under the microscope. Check, re-check, research to your heart's content. The Bible has withstood harsher criticism than any other book in history. It will satisfy your longing for truth as long as your heart is in the right place.

Yes, your heart needs to be soft enough to hear the answers or you will not learn its truth. It is fine to approach the Intellectual Struggle with some skepticism but if you are not careful you can be so closed-minded nobody can convince you of anything. It is unrealistic in a finite world with finite minds to expect exhaustive evidence. You will not find every answer to every question in your mind about an eternal, omnipotent God, but you can find sufficient evidence to base your conclusion on.

After Searching Faith I'm going to teach you about Solidifying Faith. In that stage you solidify your convictions about the answers you have been searching for. You will conclude whether you believe the evidence you have been sifting through or not. If you keep your heart right and keep truth as your goal, you will find enough evidence for a favorable verdict.

For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

- I Thessalonians 2:13

If the Intellectual Struggle is your struggle, then search. Search out the answers for yourself so you can be confident that when God is telling you something from His Word it really is God's word, and not just man's ideas.

THE PRACTICAL STRUGGLE

Some go through the Practical Struggle. This is where the believer is struggling with whether or not it is practical to follow God. "What good is my faith?" Unlike the Intellectual Struggler, this believer does not have doubts about the existence of God or the Bible being His Word. This Christian's issue is not, "Is it true?" but "Does it work?" Does Christianity accomplish the right results when I do things God's way? If I keep turning the other cheek, what will happen to me? Will Christianity enhance, improve my life or waste it? Is it worth the sacrifice to dedicate one's life to the Christian ideals?

The Practical Struggle often asks the question, "If bad things can still happen to me, what good does it do to follow God?" This is a common struggle for those with Searching Faith. Job was the epitome of the Practical Struggle. (Chapter nine will be devoted wholly to a study of Job so we will hold back saying more about him here.)

The solution to this struggle is to weigh the pros and cons of being a follower of Jesus. Count your blessings and see if the blessings don't outweigh the inconveniences. You have to look at the overall effect of Christianity on your life because to be truthful, it does take sacrifice to walk the Christian walk. Sometimes it feels like you're walking backwards. Things are not always easy, and you may struggle with whether the cons are greater than the pros. If yours is the Practical Struggle, then let your search take you through a discovery of the blessings and detriments of living Biblically. Look at the big picture.

THE EMOTIONAL STRUGGLE

Another common struggle during Searching Faith is the Emotional Struggle. This is where we find ourselves emotionally attached to a habit or object and start asking, "How can I let go of this?" As disciples we do have to let go. You may not want to hear that, but Christ does not permit us to come to Him without total release of all that we have into His hands. There is no sanction for drawing lines in the sand when it comes to following Him. We have to surrender everything. Christ said, "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." (That is Luke 14:33. When you get a chance read starting with verse 25 to get Jesus' entire point). Emotionally, our natural tendency is to hold back. We have things in this world we get way too attached to and it is hard to let go. It's a struggle.

The rich young man struggled with letting go of his riches.

"If you want to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

(That is Matthew 19:21 but if you want the whole story read verses 19:16-22). He longed for salvation, but he was too emotionally attached to his money and Jesus knew it. Jesus didn't tell him to give up his relationships, his hobbies or his vocation. It was his possessions, his money that was going to stand in the way of him being fully devoted to being a follower of Christ. So our Lord gave him an ultimatum. "Choose between the two. Which will be first in your life?" Unfortunately, that young man lost the Emotional Struggle and walked away without receiving the eternal life he was seeking. How sad.

The solution to the Emotional Struggle is to apply the faith you have. Try letting go, surrendering to Jesus as much as you can. Trust Him to be your guide. Read what His Word teaches about how to handle temptation and apply what you learn. When you see how well that works, surrender a little more and a little more. Keep doing that until you can honestly sing "I surrender all." If that sounds like hard work, that's because it is. It is a battle; a battle for your soul. Go ahead, struggle.

THE MORAL STRUGGLE

The fourth common struggle among searchers is the Moral Struggle. This is when you wrestle with the question, "Am I too sinful for God?" It is normal to feel a strong guilt about the sins we have committed in the past. We should feel guilt. We should be cut to the heart realizing our sins caused Jesus to have to go to the cross, Acts 2:37. But some become so guilt-ridden it paralyzes them spiritually. They feel like they have done things that are so repulsive, there is no way God could ever forgive them. They have decided they don't deserve to be forgiven. And even if they are forgiven, Christianity is too hard and they could never change. We might feel the way Peter did when he said,

But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

- Luke 5:8

What makes the Moral Struggle hard is that there is a lot of truth to it. We ARE too sinful to be in the presence of God. There is no way we DESERVE eternal life. If not for the blood of Christ, we would be hopelessly lost in our sins. So the solution to the Moral Struggle is to realize that we cannot change but we can be changed. We cannot change ourselves, but God can change us if we will let Him. Whether we understand it or not, God is willing to forgive the vile sins we have committed. You don't have to understand it, but you do need to accept it. Until you accept His forgiveness you will be stuck in your faith, in Affiliating Faith. Searching makes you face your insecurities.

A similar problem encountered during the Moral Struggle is in refusing to forgive ourselves. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our wretched condition and our own remorse can be overwhelming, but godly sorrow leads to repentance; not depression, II Corinthians 7:9-11. Do not set your standards higher than God's. If God can forgive you for that sin you committed, why can't you forgive yourself? Are your righteous standards higher than His? Forgive yourself and move on in your faith. You need to LEARN how grace works and then you need to ACCEPT the way grace works. Let grace have its effect on you and the Moral Struggle will fade into the night.

So, those are the four basic struggles of Searching Faith. The Intellectual Struggle, the Practical Struggle, The Emotional Struggle and the Moral Struggle. Should you memorize these? That's a great idea! Yes, commit these four struggles to memory and have a workable understanding of what each one means.

Is it possible to go through more than one of these struggles when we are searching? Absolutely! You may go through two of them, or three or even all four. But it is impossible to search without going through at least some kind of struggle. If you are just beginning your search, identify the struggle or struggles you are having and work on the solutions just explained to you in this chapter.

It is important to match your path of searching to the struggle you are having. If you are having an Emotional Struggle, the Intellectual solution will not help you. If you are having a Moral Struggle, establishing the practicality of Christianity is not going to do you much good. Left to your own devices, you will do this automatically. However, others around you may innocently try to steer you a different direction. Your struggles may be different from other disciples, so seek strength for your faith in the areas you need strength in the most.

Struggle is good. You will need to remind yourself of that every so often. Strengthening your faith takes effort but it is so worth every ounce of energy you will expend. Think of it as receiving discipline from your Heavenly Father.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

- Hebrews 12:11

Struggle is never pleasant, but the end result, "the peaceful fruit of righteousness," makes it worth it.

The "discipline" of developing your spiritual strength will drain you and train you at the same time. Spiritually speaking, it is time to hit the weight room. Your faith has become fat and flabby. It's time to do something about it. Don't listen to discouragement whether it's coming from others or inside your own head. God's spiritual health program gets results. You can do this.