Hijacked Faith

Scripture:
"Cast Your burden upon the LORD and he will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." Psalm 55:22

Observation:
This is an interesting way to end this Psalm. For 21 verses David has lamented over what was taking place in his life. He called himself restless, distracted, anguished, terrorized, fearful, and overwhelmed. He even went as far as to say that he wished he had wings so that he could fly away. So, it is interesting that he follows all that with the confession that God will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

Application:
There are many things about "Christians" I do not like. One of the major ones is their ability to make things sound some simple. I remember many times unloading my burden to someone only to hear in reply, "Just cast your burden upon the LORD." Huh? I mean really, you have got to be kidding me. Do you think that I have not tried that? Over and over again I have laid my case out before God and asked Him to take away my troubles. Yet, I still feel crushed. As I read this Psalm, it makes me feel somewhat better that David models the fact that he could experience feelings that were in opposition to his faith and yet still have faith.

Hardships are called hardships because they are HARD. They beat me down. They wear me out. They drive me to the very edge of my sanity and at times feel like they will not stop until I am completely overrun. Be that as it may, God is still God. He is still in control. He will eventually prove that He is bigger than anything that I face.

In the meantime, I will suffer. The problem with that is I hate to suffer. I just want it to go away. My prayers are never satisfied unless God immediately removes the discomfort from my life. I really have a hard time holding onto my beliefs while experiencing unrelenting hardships. I have a hard time holding onto my faith when my feelings are in opposition of that faith.

Prayer:
I really need some growth and strengthening in this area. Faith is easy for me when all in life is good. It is easy when my faith and feelings are in alignment. But when that is not taking place, which seems to be the usual, I struggle. I don’t want to be that way. I have wasted so much by allowing frustrations to take me away from you. I pray for Your guidance today. Do not allow me to be swayed by my emotions but instead to be grounded in the truth of who you are. Please don't let the hardships of life hijack my faith.