Faith helps us get through life

Does life ever seem to be one battle after another? Do you manage to survive one hurdle only to be confronted by another one? Welcome to the club.

The world has many problems we cannot deny. It seems we hear bad news every day. So many good things are hardly noticed. We forget to count our many blessings. Chief among these is our faith!

Without our faith we have no hope. This concept applies to every walk of life. We are confronted and challenged on every hand.

More than ever we need to guard our faith and stay in the race. Faith is more precious than gold and must be guarded at all costs because we live in a world that continually seeks to erode it.

We are in a fight to preserve and protect what we believe. Faith-filled people focus on Jesus. They have his Word in their hearts and shut their ears to the cries of doubt and unbelief.

Faith-filled people do not give up, back up, let up or shut up about their faith. When it comes to the end of life, they have the hope of eternal glory, making them spiritual billionaires.

So it is always too soon to quit in this race of life. With God “all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26) That incurable disease may be eliminated tomorrow with a miraculous cure. Faith gives confidence, relieves worry and provides rest.

The apostle Paul admonishes us to not only run this race of life with diligence, but to even “stretch” and “strain” forward to reach the goal and obtain the prize. (Philippians 3:14)

I love Caleb’s attitude about life in Numbers 13:30. His spirit encourages me. When the spies returned with a real “downer” about the land of Canaan, Caleb “stilled the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.’”

Later in Joshua 14:10-11, Caleb is 85 years old and he is saying, in essence, that it’s always too soon to quit: “And now, behold the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: And now lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.

As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.”

Yea Caleb! What a guy. He didn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.”

So we don’t quit. Quitters never win. We keep on going. Let’s live one day at a time. An unknown author quoted, “Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a promissory note, but today is cash in hand.”

Reorganize your thought patterns and think on “things that are pure, lovely and good report.” (Philippians 4:8)

See worry as “fear trying to conquer faith.” Consider worrying a tormenting plague from the enemy. Every time he can get you to worry, he adds to it. You can eventually be so overwhelmed you collapse.

It’s the resistance of the air that enables the airplane to fly. The pupa in the cocoon gathers strength working himself out of a problem and emerges as a beautiful butterfly. The bumblebee doesn’t know he can’t fly with a big body and little wings.

Guess what? He flies anyway. You and I can too!

Remember that with Jesus you have a love that can never be taken away and a joy that lasts forever.

It’s always too soon to quit.

Keep the faith and never give up.