Sometimes faith is in the battle just to believe, just to hang on when everything you see and hear tells you otherwise. This morning I am thinking of Job and his struggle. I am certain that people still go through similar battles as he did, because I've seen it. I'm watching someone struggle in the same ways, though not the same attacks, and just like with Job the trial seems endless, but this person has a strong heart and a great love for God, I know he will be restored because God is unchanging, if He restored Job after his time of trial, he will restore this man too.
This person I know doesn't see himself the way I do, I look at him and see a man with a faith so strong that he endures illness, anxiety, and depression everyday, but won't renounce God. He gets angry sure, and he gets frustrated, he is stuck and struggling to hold on, but he does everyday for over two years. This man still prays, praises, and hangs on in spite of everything he has endured. There have been times where it looked like it was going to get better, and he started to pull himself out of the darkness, only to have the rug pulled out from under him again, leaving him laying on the ground asking 'why?'
I have not always seen him the way I am now, in the past I have lost my patience with him time and time again, even blaming him, saying it was a lack of faith that has kept him stuck, but recently God has opened my eyes and allowed me to see the bigger picture. It was never a lack of faith, faith that the storm would pass has kept him going actually, it is a heavy burden of fear that holds him down. It is fear that has him bound up and held hostage in his own mind.
Someone reading this is asking the same thing I have been thinking, and saying for a long time now, isn't that fear a sign of a lack of faith? I mean Jesus even said to his disciples "ye of little faith' when they were scared. But no, I think I am starting to understand its not a sign of lack of faith, it's a symptom, and symptoms can be treated before it becomes the full blown illness.
But how do you treat fear? This is where this person and I have gotten to, how do we break the hold? Everyday I pray over him, I have asked for prayer on his behalf many times, this person prays and begs God to release him too. But each day it is still there, telling him lies about death, destruction that he is weak, and that God is far away and has forgotten him.
I think, and I will be honest about this I am in no way certain that I am right, but I think in order to combat the lies of fear, I need to keep pouring truth over him. He needs to see and recognize the truth inside himself, and when he realizes how much he has overcome just by holding on that he will know he can conquer fear with God, that God never left him, but has protected him from the destruction that fear can so often cause in people. I don't know how long it will take until the chains of fear are broken over this person, but I do know that God will break them, and He will use this person's struggle to see someone else through. That is one of the beauties of struggling, that's the hidden gift. Once our chains are broken, we can help break other's.
Job 33:26
He prayeth unto God, and He is favourable unto him; so that he seeth His face with joy; and He restoreth unto man his righteousness.
Job 42:10
And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
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