Faith, whether strong or weak, big or small, mature or immature, is the means through which God Himself extends you and me His grace, strength, and hope. When we are weak and needy and receiving His grace through even frail faith, we are secure in the love of our Savior.

There are times in our lives when we feel we are hanging on by a thread. We don’t feel confident. We don’t feel assured. We don’t feel secure. We feel overwhelmed. Our faith seems to be so fragile that it could shatter at any moment. We look at our circumstances and doubt whether we can make it through. We look at our daunting, besetting sins and wonder if we’ll ever advance. We also wonder how it could be that we, a child of God, could think, feel, and do such shocking evils. We want to be different and perhaps wish we could be someone else.

Like in the Bill Murray movie, What About Bob?, we want to take a vacation from our problems. Sometimes when I struggle so deeply with my sins, sins that I’ve fought for years, I wish I was someone else. Not so much in the sense of, I wish I was James, he seems to have it all together, but more in the sense of being different, of not being like myself, of perhaps struggling with something different for once, so I can feel like I’ve made progress in my besetting sins.

Sin is tiring. We trust Christ, but our trust is so pathetic sometimes. If we’re honest, when we look toward tomorrow, we fear our faith will fail. But isn’t it true that we are at our weakest when we are fixating on ourselves and our circumstances? We call it navel-gazing, which dictionary.com defines as excessive absorption in self-analysis or focus on a single issue. We look to ourselves when we should be looking to Christ.

You may get car or seasick. One remedy is to face the direction you’re traveling and keep your eyes on a stationary object in the distance. By His Spirit and Word, God is leading us in the right direction, so if we’re facing in another direction, perhaps the direction of doubt and insecurity, we’ll feel disoriented. We need to turn around and face the same way God is leading us. We need to set our gaze upon Christ. Self-reflection is essential, of course, as are confession and repentance, but if our attention is continually held by our own sins, inabilities, and weaknesses, it means Christ is not the center of our attention as He ought to be, and this is where our insecurity originates.

You may fear that your faith will fail, but have you considered that the sovereign and sustaining grace and love of God never fail? This is a stabilizing truth.

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