Faith and Patience

When the Spirit first gives life, we rise to action. The first tastes of hope, freedom, and adoption are more than enough fuel to set off on the hard and narrow path.

Until the hard path begins to feel hard. 

Spiritual sluggishness enters in. 

The Bible, once sweeter than honey, loses its taste. The prayer time you once craved now feels like a chore. The faith that once bloomed with dreams droops into a long winter night.

Like Peter, there was a time when you told Jesus you would always stay by his side. 

Now you’re falling asleep in the garden. 

It’s tempting to try to go back to the early days, when everything was easier. But the only path out of the rut is to go forward with God—into the next step of enduring faith.

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Hebrews 6:11-12)

The antidote for spiritual sluggishness is “faith and patience”—expectant endurance, a patient plodding ahead in hopes of future reward. 

Faith is required to take the next step forward in the Christian life. Patience is required to take the next ten thousand. 

If you’re feeling sluggish in your walk with Jesus, you are either underestimating the reward of God’s promises or the waiting time required for their fulfillment. 

For the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). 

Consider the joy. Meditate on the reward. Have faith. And then, do the most radical act of faith imaginable: take the next step of obedience.