“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” 1 John 4:20

Muddy Faith

Part 1

I used to love the rain, and still do—on the weekends. But on school days? No thank you! Rainy days mean a rainy day schedule, which means my students stay in the classroom and don’t get to go out to play. All. Day. Long!

Last year we had a good stretch of rainy days, and the boys in my class were over it just as much as I was. So the moment we had a sunny day, we were all eager to go outside. The children were so happy on the playground, finally free to run. However, it was with chagrin that I sent them home that afternoon. One little boy in particular had come to school in a very handsome cream-colored sweater. I had to apologize to his mom, because he didn’t get a little muddy—he was covered front and back, head-to-toe in mud. How he managed to get that dirty I can only imagine! But he was one happy boy who had finally gotten to play outside and the mud was proof of it.

I went through a rough time last year. I would start my day in prayer, give it to the Lord, go do what I needed to do, and come home exhausted, just to pray and try to give it over again. I started to feel like a faith “failure.” I was trying so hard to love God, obey, and respond to my circumstances correctly. But oftentimes the day ended with me feeling frustrated, weary, and dejected. I thought, “My faith must be too weak.” I would question: If I had enough faith, would I still get so discouraged or frustrated, or worry about outcomes? Would I still be so exhausted from the daily struggle?

And so, to my weariness, I added condemnation.

Then the Lord spoke to me through those verses in 1 John 4:20 and 1 John 5:3-5. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

God says faith overcomes the world. That implies a struggle with the world in which we are victorious through faith. God isn’t looking for us to have a faith so great that we “transcend” our problems and they don’t bother us anymore. He’s looking for faith that is a witness as we deal with the tough stuff of life.

When Jesus commands us to love our brother, He isn’t content with us just trying to reach a “higher spiritual plane”—loving God, and forgetting the rest. Instead, He says you can’t really love Me unless you love those around you—even the difficult ones. That’s a boots-on-the-ground kind of faith that overcomes the world.

“Lord, make our faith bigger—even if our boots-on-the-ground are muddy. Amen.”