“Faith is like a muscle; it must be exercised to get stronger.” Billy Graham

My workouts have been pretty much spotty at best over the past couple of months. No excuses, just reality. However, it would have been much easier on my body if I didn’t have the big gaps between them.

You all know it. The day after you start back up again, your muscles scream at you, “What in the world have you done? Why do you want to hurt me again?”

In my case, I have to stay in good physical shape to do what the Lord called me to do. So, if I love Him, I’ll do these workouts with and for Him no matter how I feel (last week’s blog) or uncomfortable I am, which is what we’ll see today.

I once read that “success is being comfortable while being uncomfortable.”

And success for the Jesus believer is not what you do for Him. It’s what He does in you: Transforming your way of thinking, choosing and living into His way of thinking, choosing and living. What does this require? Strengthening your faith muscles.

If the Father doesn’t choose to do a miraculous instantaneous life change (believe me, I’ve asked for it!), which by its definition is rare or it wouldn’t be a miracle, He uses a process of daily and sometimes hourly hard faith choices to walk into His arms.

And this process by its definition is uncomfortable! You’re letting go of what you’re comfortable being (“the known”) into being uncomfortable (“the unknown”) while the Spirit’s transformation process does its job.

Living by hard faith choices, then, means learning how to be comfortable while being uncomfortable, which is not a contradiction and easier said that done.

It’s not that you don’t have faith. It’s that your faith is being stretched like a muscle causing “good soreness” or uncomfortableness while your faith is being increased.

Life change is a process, not a one-off event. And those hard faith choices will be very uncomfortable. And, who wants to be uncomfortable? The person who loves Jesus while being uncomfortably comfortable.

“If it were not for uncertainties, we’d have no need to walk by faith.” Elisabeth Elliot

Faith is Jesus asking us to do something we don’t feel like doing. For if we were already doing it, He wouldn’t need to ask, right?

Faith to follow Him in a particular area of our life often starts, however, with a cold hard decision that turns into warmth once we obey.

This is how Corrie ten Boom, who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for hiding Jews in her home, described it. She was asked by the Father to follow Him in taking a huge leap, at least for her, of faith.

She didn’t feel like taking that leap, let alone step! And many, quite frankly, would have understood if she hadn’t. Yet, she loved Jesus enough to trust Him despite her “justified” feelings.

After a little wrestling, she took her step of faith. What was it? You can search the internet for her story. The point here is the how, not the what.

Hebrews 11:6 states that we can’t please God unless we take faith steps to follow Him. Love God? Take a faith step out of your normal. Want to put a smile on His face? Get out of your comfort zone to do something different to become more like Him.

Sometimes this decision is cold and hard with a cry, “Help me, Lord!” The Father told Joshua to be strong and courageous (non-emotional words) not fearful and dismayed (emotional words) because He would be with Joshua every step of the way.

Your Father is like a parent teaching their child to walk. He’s down on His knees with outstretched arms asking you to walk toward Him. He hasn’t left, but wants you to step into His loving arms.

What step is your Father asking you to take today? Own your emotions. Cry out to Him for help. Then take that step, right now. Cold to warmth. Uncertain to certain as you experience your God today!

Now, excuse me. I have a phone call to make. “Lord, help me!”

“I know all the moves anyone can make, including yours.” – Jesus

I recently made a trip to Tennessee for my aunt’s funeral. The Lord used both she and my uncle in making a huge impact on my life. After arriving at the airport, I hopped into my rental car and took off for my destination…after, of course, putting the address into my GPS.

What I didn’t realize was that I landed in Nashville at rush hour! Yes, Tennessee has rush hours; and of course, everyone blames Californians for it. LOL.

What should have been a 50-minute drive turned into almost two hours! Ugh, not something I wanted to experience after flying cross country.

Yet, my GPS gave me options. One, I could stay with what I knew – the freeway, which I had done before to get to their place. Or, I could step into the unknown by choosing to leave the freeway.

Both would get me there. One was safer because I knew it. Did I mention, it must be the right option because a whole lot of others took it as well? And one was faster though unknown. I chose the latter. And come to find out, it was much more enjoyable. I saw a whole lot of the beautiful Tennessee countryside.

We all face traffic jams in life. Sometimes they are of our own making and sometimes not. We can stick with what we know or go to the One who sees beyond the car in front of us – the unknown.

The Spirit may want us to leave the traffic through making course corrections that lead to knowing and loving Jesus more. Or, He may want us to stay in the traffic due to a nasty accident ahead where people will need your help, which also leads you to knowing and loving Jesus more.

My first impulse was to get off the freeway, which was my way. Your way might have been to just sit it out in traffic. Either way, we would be taking our way – the known, something we are comfortable doing.

Yet, our known leaves us unchanged; thus, we can find ourselves in the same traffic filled challenge over and over again until we choose the unknown path of following the Spirit to life change. His unknown way leaves those particular challenges behind so you can see some great countryside scenery that leads to a very peaceful feeling.

“Freedom’s price is vigilance.”

I’ll bet the owners of this fence were totally jazzed when they first put it up. They beamed with pride as it not only accented their home, but also protected their property from possible intruders.

Over time, though, without proper maintenance, the law of physics took its toll. One by one small parts of the fence rotted and broke away. And because of seasonal weather changes, the nails worked themselves loose resulting in slats falling to the ground. Both cost the fence its ability to protect their home.

The law of physics hits the life of the believer as well. Just like wood can become fatigued, so too can what we thought was a character strength. We also go through seasons of life that expose lies in our thinking that need to be replaced with scriptural nails to protect us from attacks.

Scripture talks about this! Right after the Spirit talks about the armor of God – our ability to stay free in Christ (Gal. 5:1) – He tells us to be vigilant in prayer for each other (Eph. 6:18).

The enemy is constantly probing to find weak points in our fence. This is why we need others looking out and praying for us. They can see in our actions and/or hear in our conversations a slat or a nail that needs to be replaced with God’s truth in order to stand firm during the attacks.

Again, in the context of spiritual warfare, the Spirit also writes that we are to be humble before the Lord (1 Peter 5:6-10). Will we listen to what the Spirit is saying through others so we can stay free in Christ?

Want your fence to be strong? Humble yourself before the Lord to listen to the spiritual intel He gives you through others so you can let Him replace your worn-out character with His everlasting character.

Want to stand firm when attacks come? Humble yourself to listen to what the Spirit is saying through others who are praying for you, even when you don’t know it, so you can have new slats and nails in place when the enemy attacks.

Your freedom and growth in Christ take team vigilance.

“God has a purpose for your pain and a reward for your faithfulness. Trust Him and keep climbing.”

How much pain would you endure, if you knew the path you were on was part of the Father’s plan?

David knew he would be king. Yet twice, David spared Saul’s life only to live on the run. David had a higher purpose for living and murder was not part of it.

Paul was told by a prophet something he already knew. He would be arrested in Jerusalem. Paul went anyway as he was given a higher purpose for living – share the gospel with governors, kings and Caesar, which he did.

Jesus also knew exactly what was going to happen if He entered Jerusalem. He’d be arrested, power beaten and killed. Yet, He too was living with a higher purpose – save humanity from itself now and ultimately after leaving earth.

The Lord gave you life. His purpose for that life may not always be easy or comfortable. Yet, how much pain would you be willing to endure to be able to say, “Lord, Your will be done?”

Humans simply are not humane at times. In fact, humans can be the creators of chaos, carnage and confusion through both their words and their actions.

As children of God, we were never promised an exemption from what humans can do. The Father can use us, though, to be His agents of pain relief, especially the eternal kind, if only we’d keep climbing through the pain.