Believe When You Don’t Feel Like It


I can tell it has been another bad day by the way he walks in the door, his shoulders slightly slumped and the grin that used to welcome me is turned upside down. He pretends to smile for me and the kids but it never fully reaches his eyes. He unloads all his stuff onto the dresser but the weight of years of disappointments rest heavily on his shoulders.

I watch him, wondering how to help ease his irritation. I want to offer words of encouragement but they stick in my throat, not knowing how to dislodge his hurt. When I finally open my mouth, my suggestions sound canned and only increases the hurt. He gently responds to me,
“I know the correct answers but I am just mad.” His wounds masks themselves as anger but deep into his green eyes you see the hurt.
From the outside, few would know his struggles and search for significance. One must look closely to see that the monotony of life has left him bored and unfulfilled. He has a wife and two kids, a ministry, talent, and love for people but comes home each night tired and angry. Most days, I go one way and he goes the other and we occasionally cross paths to offer a greeting and then we fall into bed at night to get up and do it again. I wonder how many men around have reached a mid point and are left wondering if this is all there is to life? I wonder how many wives stand by them helplessly questioning how to help.
 We are told and believe that serving the Lord would bring the greatest fulfillment, while staking our claim that doing God’s will would be the best for us. However, many days His will isn’t the easiest. Sometimes, it is just down right painful.

 The dictionary tells us that belief is a “confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.” In this season of our lives, when anger and disappointment cloud the picture of God’s best for our life, we must choose to believe. To believe when we don’t feel like it. To trust when we are shaking. To hope when it seems hopeless. To stand on the promise that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NIV)

 

Have you  or are you living in a time of believing when you didn’t want to believe?  Have you had your trust shaken?  How has choosing to believe brought you through?  Meet us in the forums or the devotionals and comment.

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