Five Things God Uses to Grow Your FaithSample

PRAYER:

God, I want to make a difference in the lives of others. Help me to know what to do and how to start. 

READING:

Personal Ministry

Throughout our lives, God is working to grow our faith, and one of the ways he does this is through personal ministry.

If you’ve been a Christian for very long and you were to tell me about the things God used to grow your faith, you would probably tell me a story about a time in your life when somebody presented an opportunity or talked about a need, and you just couldn’t get it off your mind. You felt this internal nudge to get involved. You would tell a story about how scared and unprepared you felt, but as you got involved, you began to see God do amazing things. 

In order to grow your faith, God may want to use something or somebody outside your comfort zone to stretch you. He may be inviting you outside your skill set and experience to serve someone else. God wants to exhaust your faith muscle in order to build it up, and this is how he does it.

We see this tension in the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 in Matthew 14. In the middle of this story, Jesus makes a statement to his disciples that I think describes the issue all of us will wrestle with at some point in our faith journey when it comes to getting outside of our comfort zone and serving God in a way that makes us uncomfortable.

At the end of the day, the disciples suggested releasing the crowd of people so they could go get food to eat. However, Matthew 14:16 says, “Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”

This is the tension when you sense that somebody has a need that needs to be met and you feel compelled to do something. And maybe your reaction is like mine. You’re going, “No, no, no. I don’t meet those needs; I pray for the people who are going to meet those needs. I feel like this is something I should pray about.” And God is going, “I want you to do it.” And when you think about being in that situation, you’re aware of what you don’t know, and you’re afraid someone will ask you a hard question, and you’re not trained, and you haven’t been to seminary, and you don’t have the time, etc.

In verse 17, the disciples gave an excuse that sounded like, “We can’t do it. We’re not prepared. We’re not equipped.”

However, once Jesus gave thanks for the food and handed it back to the disciples, they did what they knew how to do because that’s all they could do. They didn’t know how to feed 5,000 people with that little bit of food, but they knew how to serve the food they had.

Your responsibility every time is to do what you know how to do and then trust your heavenly Father to do what only he can do. Because the tension and the fear you feel when you think you’re not prepared is your confidence-in-God muscle being stretched and worn out. That is God exercising and growing your faith. 

This is the way God works. In the process, our faith muscles get stretched, and we come out on the other end going, “Wow, look what God did!”

REFLECTION:

Where do you think God might be nudging you to get involved? What would it look like in your life for you to do what you know how to do and trust God to do what only he can do?