Faith in the Midst of Failure

"I've been granted the opportunity to show I don't serve him because of what he gives me. To show I trust him even when it looks like I shouldn't." - Professor Laud in Karen Hancock's The Shadow Within

It's easy to be a person of faith when everything is going well and you feel God's blessing upon you (though, I often think we loose some of our faith in those times as well as it becomes easy to rest on our laurels rather than trust God for everything). Our faith is really proven (and shown to others) when it stays strong when all we have is taken away. That's not easy at all, but often times we need to get to those places to recognize that God is all we need (and that we've sometimes put other things in front of Him, that we can truly trust in Him when there is nowhere else to turn).

I'm not able to name one person of faith from the Bible who didn't go through a down period in their lives--a moment where all they had was taken from them. We need those moments to discover what our faith truly means to us and to see how much we truly trust God with everything. Sharing those times don't often make sense to others, but they show that our faith is real and not just based upon what we get from it.