When Your Faith Isn’t What It Should Be

What do you do when the faith you proclaim doesn’t quite match up with the faith you possess?

I’d imagine you’ve had times (I know I have) when circumstances tested how much you actually believe what you’ve said (or sung in church) about God.

Ezra finds himself in exactly this place in a fascinating passage in Ezra 8 where he’s leading a wave of return from Israelite captivity. After being sent with a large group of Israelites from Babylon to Jerusalem by King Artaxerxes, Ezra gets to a section of the journey that’s especially conducive to ambush.

At first, he considers contacting Artaxerxes for a contingent of soldiers before progressing, but stops short. I love his honesty as he explains why:

I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” (Ezra 8:22)

Nice.

In other words, Ezra had spoken confidently about God’s protection, so he didn’t want to look faithless and cowardly by coming back and asking the king for soldiers. “I’d talked the talk,” Ezra says in essence. “Now it’s time to walk the walk.”

And I love his solution in verse 23: “So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.”

Where’s the best place to go when faith in God wavers?

God.

May the faith we possess always match the faith we proclaim.

But when it doesn’t, may we be smart enough to talk to the One who already knows there’s a gap, and who can do something about it.