How to Keep Your Faith Strong in Trying Times

Please pray I can keep my faith strong in this crazy world…

I’d asked for prayers to do well in my own ministry work, so this wasn’t the response I expected when I asked a fellow believer how I may pray for them. My first reaction was, “Yikes, I am so selfish and shallow.”

And then sadness. What a burden that must be to feel the weight of the world so intimately that it challenges one’s own faith.

Indeed, we are in crazy times. This world is full of confusion, loneliness, and strife as God’s children wander far from Him in ways we never dreamed of not too long ago. Many believers experience such a burden for this broken world that their own faith feels threatened.

I began to pray for my friend and for all who struggle to keep the faith strong in this crazy world. As I did so, I reached for my rosary. My fingers barely brushed the beads before the whisper in my soul asked, Keep the faith in who?

I took a tip from our Holy Mother and pondered the question deep in my own heart where the writer meets her Lord.

Faith is a noun, so there is an object upon which an expected action is attributed. That action of course, is a verb. I have faith in myself to get out of bed in time for early Mass. I have faith in my car to get me there. I have faith in the people closest to me to be there for the laughter and the tears.

Sometimes I oversleep, my car doesn’t start, and loved ones walk away. Expectations are not met, so I lose faith in their abilities to perform as expected.

But there is One who never fails. In Christ alone we may put our faith. In Him our hope will never run empty. He is our unshakeable foundation upon which our faith may rest.

So, if we know our faith is in the Lord rather than the world, then why does our faith feel compromised?

Perhaps the root is in our expectation. The noun didn’t deliver on the verb. So, let’s look at what God promised to do.

Did our loving God promise to make the world behave? Of course not. That’s control, not love.

So, what did God promise in Scripture and when He walked this crazy world as Emmanual?

He promised to bring good out of every mess we give Him.
He promised to guide our steps if we trust Him.
He promised He will be with us if we remain in Him.
To those who walk in His word, He promised peace that doesn’t make sense in a crazy world.

These promises have two things in common. First, every expectation is a matter of the spirit, such as peace, guidance, and relationship. But none of them promise a specific worldly outcome, such as an end to violence, disease, or discord.

Instead, He promised these things will continue, but that we can put our faith in Him because He is bigger than all of it.

Our only faith in this world should be in its ability to sin in every manner known and yet unknown. In this, the world will never fail, so therefore, my faith in this world will not be shaken.

In over fifty years on this earth, I’ve walked through loss, disease, countless betrayals untold, and personal failure in every breath. I struggle in other ways, but I don’t feel the burden of this world’s sin because the world can’t weaken a faith directed towards my unchanging loving God. I know in the very fiber of my soul that when all else is lost, Jesus never fails.

The second thing God’s promises have in common is that they all require our initiative. Because He loves us too much to control us, it’s up to you and me to go to Him first.

From the heart of a writer to anyone feeling shaken from the world’s sin, I invite you to consider the noun and the verb. What is the object and expectation of your weakened faith?

Then, go to Jesus to renew your strength. Open your Bible. Grab your rosary.  Listen to Scripture. Spend an hour in adoration. Praise Him in song. Read a testimony of faith. Do whatever strikes you to shift your focus on Jesus.

I can promise with a zero percent failure rate that Jesus will renew your faith every time you…