My Crisis of Faith ​

Happy New Month and welcome to my blog!

I'm so excited to finally be writing and I thought what better way to start than writing about something that means so much to me: my faith. Today’s word of encouragement is essentially me just sharing my ongoing journey of faith in an attempt to simply reiterate that the race of life isn't intended to be easy . So as you face trials and tribulations always remember you're never alone & that there is hope! Before I properly begin, I feel as if I must give an explanation, so here it is: I intended to bring out posts every Wednesday and I was prepared to do so up until it was the next Wednesday (everything is easier said than done right). Thereafter people began to ask me, "Grace when’s your next post coming out I thought you said Wednesday?”. In all honesty I replied saying I was uncertain, and I was waiting for the “right moment”. After some consideration, I realised that this was down to one thing: fear. I was struck with an overwhelming sense of fear; not fear as in that I was afraid but simply fear that I wasn't qualified enough to be writing. I pondered on this negative feeling and wondered what caused this, because usually when it came to my faith, it was the one thing I was comfortable to share with others. I then came to a realsisation that this feeling of fear was deep-rooted in my lack of faith. Partly why I decided that the topic of faith would be a perfect introduction to my first content-based post. So, todays post will involve elements of vulnerability and honesty.

The word of God defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (this is derived from Hebrews 11:1). It comes of no surprise that faith is a hard concept to execute and to understand. As human beings we commonly rely on things of substance that can be acquired, through the use of empirical knowledge (things we see), therefore faith essentially goes against anything we deem to be ‘rational’. Growing up in the church, I felt as if I understood the concept of faith, I thought that if I believe and prayed and that along as my prayer was in alignment with Gods plan for my life it would come to pass. When I realised that this wasn’t the case I redefined faith for myself (based on reference to the scripture).

After redefining faith for myself, I now knew what faith was, but I still found it so difficult to apply to my life. I just needed a little affirmation or some sort of confirmation, I waited but I didn’t get it.

I convinced myself that my faith was a facade, causing me to manufacture the thought process of self-doubt. It made me think, I came here to talk about my faith and if I didn't have much faith, who am I speak to others about it. I Still went to church, I still served, and I still prayed (I did everything "expected" of a Christian), but I felt there was something missing, it just wasn't as enjoyable as it was before, something simply wasn't right. In my opinion I thought it was quite hypocritical, here I was trying to teach others about Christ (at church and here) but I felt as if my whole faith was based on a rocky foundation. Like I loved God, but it’s easy to show your love for someone, but it becomes harder when you can’t see them! I wasn’t prepared for this. It wasn't until then that I realised I had a misconception of what faith actually was. I admired faith from afar, listening to other testimonies brought me joy, but it just seemed inconceivable that I too could experience that.

The more frequently I read the scripture, I more I was reminded of beautiful message of God: We weren’t made by mistake! We’re masterpieces. Each part of us, even our insecurities were created for an ultimate purpose. This message reiterated that one should embrace themselves, because beauty lied in the eyes of the Lord, this provided a sense of affirmation that beauty goes beyond material admiration and that beauty was somewhat intrinsic (came from within). After all Jesus was perfect & we are created in the image of God (Gen1:27) so we can only but strive to be perfect - just like he planned!

Even then, I didn't feel that this was applicable to me, my lack of faith had driven to the point in which I thought God’s grace only extended to others around me rather than to me. My lack of faith caused me to be in a constant state of disillusionment in which I doubted not only myself but more importantly God. It wasn’t that I didn’t think he was there, I knew that. It’s just that I didn’t think he was there for me. I thought I was alone.

I realised this was something God wanted me to find out on my own (I had to decide whether or not I wanted to trust in him). I realised that I let fear consume my thoughts and overwhelm me. So, let me talk to you about fear; fear of failure caused me to reconsider the one thing that I was certain of (my ability to share the gospel). It was fear that attempted to convince me that God’s grace didn't extend to me and that by putting faith in something I can't see, I was only fooling myself. This fear was interwoven with my self-confidence. Yet again I came to another realisation, only this time it was the realisation that caused me to understand God’s love did extend to me. It was that my confidence comes from God and without God I lost my confidence. I doubted my ability, I doubted everything that I had. Life just became life, not saying there was no meaning but it just became a routine. Doing things simply because they had to be done. Going to school became a chore, intellectual curiosity wasn't something I enjoyed anymore. All simply because of lack of faith, lack of faith in myself and more importantly lack of faith in God. It’s as if I had convinced myself that because it didn’t go right once it wouldn’t go right again or because I failed once I was doomed to failure in all aspects of my life. It just seemed to be a relentless cycle, every-time I tried to recover I’d end up feeling the same way. I just thought to myself why, I didn’t lose faith, but I had simply had a “crisis” of faith.

This is a journey that I’m very much still trying to overcome and I'm persevering through(by the Grace of God), but I now have an open mind and always have on my mind when I face difficult situations that just because I didn’t anticipate for this to happen, doesn’t mean God didn’t!! Gods plan is far better than my own! As a message of encouragement to myself and to others, today I’m going to start leaning on God and try to stop forgetting that he’s here with me. That his love for me is immense and undeserved.

Finally, I want to share with you my new favourite song. A song from Tori Kelly’s new album entitled “Never alone”. The last section of the song says “And if all things work together in the end. The broken will be beautiful”. You might be going through something now, but this isn’t the end. God doesn’t want it to be the end. There’s more to your story, there’s a whole chapter waiting to be opened. Please just have faith & open this chapter. This is derived from Romans 8:28 - a message of hope. It’s essentially saying that there is hope for those who believe in God (read the verse/ chapter). Please listen to the song!! & more importantly please listen to God.

I can now confirm that I'm here to stay and by Gods special grace I will be here to continue to spread the message of good news! Have a blessed week x