12-14-2014

Good Morning All,

          Luke 17:5; “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

           A number of years ago, I coached kid baseball.  I really enjoyed working with the kids and trying to get them to have some level of success when they played the game.  When they were quite young, the 5 and 6 year olds, they were easily encouraged.  I remember one young guy who tried to catch a pop fly.  He ran in about 5 steps and the ball landed about 15 feet behind where he started from.  He had a dejected look and I told him he made a good try and he would catch the next one.  He smiled and said he would.  Yet as the players got older; it got tougher to convince them.  One of the greatest principles that I coached with was the idea that you have to have faith in yourself.  If you believe you will fail then you probably will.  You need to believe in your skill to have a chance.  Most of the players came to understand this but some never believed in themselves.  In some ways, our faith life works the same way.

    Doubt attacks us in many ways.  One way is that doubt can feed our own selfishness.  Faith requires that we trust others, in this case we must trust God, by doubting, we make ourselves the only one we trust even when we know we are too weak.  This is part of the devil’s deception and part of our sinful nature causing us to look inward and not outward.

    Doubting becomes easy especially if we neglect listening to God and his Word.  Even a few days away can allow the devil to ask, “did God really say?” and we are left wondering, doubting what we know to be true.  These doubts continue to feed our inward looking curve; and our doubt grows and our faith weakens.

    Yet what is almost the most devastating thing is that doubting can be contagious.  As those around us doubt, we begin to question as well.  If the person besides us has doubts; it can cause us to think that we may be wrong and cause us to lose confidence.  It can cause us to lose faith.  Doubt is easily one of the devil’s favorite tools.  It is equal to envy and greed.  It feeds our selfishness and weakens our trust in God’s promises.

    This is why we need to cry to our Lord, “Increase my faith!”  We need to constantly renew our listening to his promises.  We need to constantly recharge our faith by reading his Words pf grace, hearing his Word spoken to us and through the regular reception of his sacrament.  God gives us the tools to strengthen the faith he gives us and we must use them.  Doubt is a powerful tool that the devil loves to use but it cannot overcome the wonders of God’s incredible grace.  Even as we doubt God’s mercy is actively seeking us to come back to him and trust his promise to protect us and to never abandon us.  Our faith will strengthen as long as we always remember that God is greater than any battle and stronger than any doubt we may have.  Just keep praying for an increase in faith.

Father, build our faith.  Strengthen us by your Spirit and remove our doubt.  Guard us by your mercy.  Send your Spirit of hope to those who struggle with doubt and fear.  Bring them home to your loving arms where they may be safe and at peace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret