Tag: alone

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3 (More) Ways to Help Someone Struggling with Faith

When I wrote 10 Ways to Help Someone Struggling with Faith, it was 2019. It was about four years after my hardest season of struggling with faith had ended. I started this blog to help people who struggle with faith to feel less alone, and that early blog post remains one of the most-read posts. We want to help those around us, but we don’t always know how. We can’t always relate to someone else’s struggle, because each of our journeys is unique. But as someone who’s been there as far as losing faith and finding it again, I wanted to help bridge the gap between people who struggle with their faith, and their loved ones. And I still do.

Before we get into the 3 ways to help further, I want to acknowledge that a person who has reached a point where they are questioning faith, a foundational component of identity and life, means that they are desperate. Desperate for change. Desperate for authenticity and Truth. This has led them to a place of questioning what is True in their lives, which a very difficult thing for a human being to do. It is much more common and more comfortable not to question the things we can’t reconcile. People who struggle with questions of faith are extremely courageous. They are facing the fear that they might have gotten things very wrong. They are willing to do the hard work of seeking out the Truth, despite what they might find out about themselves or others along the way. We thank God for these Truth-seekers in our lives! Those who choose to go through fire for the Truth can be some of the most refined.

1. Don’t Give Up on Connection

Connection is one of the most healing things there is. God made us to connect with Him and with other people. He designed us to be loved, supported, and encouraged by those we share connections with, aka people in our community. Our community can be our neighbors, coworkers, friends, church community, and family. When a person is struggling with their faith, those connections can feel especially difficult to maintain. They simply cannot relate in the ways they did before.

If you are a safe person to someone in a faith struggle, you may hear things from them you never expected to hear. You may hear things that are sad, surprising, or existential. Without a common foundation of understanding, these are very hard things to connect with another person about. It makes sense that it’s tough to connect. But please don’t give up.

To someone struggling with faith, they likely feel that their identity is in flux. This is why this struggle can lead to people pulling away from those in their communities. It’s likely not because they want to break a relational connection, it is more plausible that they don’t want to ruin a connection because they can’t act or speak in the same ways they once did with you. It is nearly impossible to be undergoing inner world changes while simultaneously following the norms of conversation. Nothing feels normal anymore to someone struggling. Questions of faith can’t be resolved in one sitting or one conversation. Anyone in relationship with someone going through these types of questions will need to be patient.

Connecting with someone is the last thing they probably feel they can do, yet it can be one of the most reassuring and helpful things for their heart. You don’t have to understand everything they are thinking about, you just need to be a constant, loving presence that won’t give up on them, and isn’t scared of what they are going through. Their faith journey is normal and healthy and is for a purpose, and you can help remind them of that when their world seems to be spinning out of their control. To open the possibility up to connect, the most important thing is to make sure they know you aren’t going anywhere.

2. Share Your Testimony of Faith

To truly connect with someone, that person needs to know where you’re coming from. The worst thing you can do when you want to help someone in a faith crisis is to hide where you stand when it comes to your own faith. The best way to let them know where you stand is to share your story. Why do you believe what you believe about God? What makes you solid in your faith? Hearing someone share how certain and unwavering they were in their convictions about how God moves, and hearing them state the Biblical Truths that they stand firm on made a big impact with me when I was struggling with faith. I became curious how they were so certain, what made quoting the Bible so easy for them, how they seemed to be so calm in their spirit about the things I was not calm about. It made me press deeper into what was actually True. Truth is what people need when they are in this state, and oftentimes, they need to find it for themselves. But our testimonies can point them towards Jesus. Our own faith can encourage and inspire other people, even when it doesn’t seem apparent that they trust or believe us at first. The Holy Spirit is faithful to work in people’s hearts, and can use your story and your life to testify of His love and Truth. We are called to share our stories in love, with prayer and discernment as to the right timing and circumstances.

3. Bring Them Around People Who Love God

When I was struggling, I was brought into a church worship service where the room was full of people lifting all their love to God, and God’s love was palpable as it poured back in turn on the room. It was an amazingly beautiful experience that I still think of often. I could not deny that God’s love was in that room, or that He was completely real and True to those people worshiping Him that day. Being in a room of people who love and adore the Lord, better yet, who are authentically worshiping joyfully, is one of the most confronting things a person struggling with faith can see. When our faith runs out, sometimes we just need something we can see. It can eventually bring clarity to the confusion.

To recap, three (more) ways we can help someone struggling are to never give up on them and make sure they know we will always be there for them, share our faith, and make faith visible in a way that doesn’t require their response. Surround them with love, and pray for guidance to the unique ways that you can connect with and share with that person in the love of Christ for them.

The focus must always be on God, not on them; or on us. May we let the story God is writing speak.

To God be all the glory! Amen.

“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged‘” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace.

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The Spiritual Disciplines: Solitude

For many of us, as we continue to practice social distancing to slow the global pandemic, solitude may be on our minds now more than ever. 

I am currently on Day 11 of self quarantine. I work from home, so the quarantine has not changed my lifestyle that much. However, the spiritual practice of solitude has come into sharper focus for me. In wanting to use this time well and in a healthier place than the uncertain climate might try to dictate, I’ve been asking questions like, “How did Jesus practice solitude, and what does practicing solitude look like for us today?” Because, let’s be real, not many of us can just go walk up a mountain like He did.   

Before getting into it, I think it’s important to note that the spiritual discipline of solitude is not the same as simply “being alone.” Just because you are in quarantine or are isolated in your home doesn’t necessarily mean you are practicing solitude. Solitude is actually about fellowship, and it takes resolve (Mark 1:35), even from Jesus. 

The practice of solitude is about the inner fulfillment and inner peace God has provided. 

Peace is something I for one have been needing to hold on to in these strange days that seem to run together and yet go by slowly. Solitude can heighten our awareness of the peaceful presence of God, and how He is at work in us. Who He is provides, and has already provided, our very fulfillment and peace. It is when we resolve to be there, focus, and connect with Him in solitude that we become aware of it. 

Jesus Himself practiced solitude to draw close to God the Father. In his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer wrote that solitude, or the wilderness in the spiritual sense, was actually a place of great strength for Jesus. Comer argues that solitude in the wilderness was actually a good thing as Jesus was being tempted. 

He was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1), which is important to note. Jesus was deliberately alone during His testing period with Satan. Whereas isolation is commonly known to be a place of weakness for individuals, Jesus showed that being alone can be a place of great strength when He overcame all the temptations put before Him. Perhaps Satan missed something when he agreed to test Jesus alone. 

In solitude, you aren’t actually alone; God is present and communicating with you. 

Jesus knew this. He “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16). Even in solitude, Jesus said He was never alone; in John 16:32 He said, “you…will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone for the Father is with me.”

I’ve wondered why Jesus would need to be alone if that was the case. If He is God and God was with Him, what was so important and why was it necessary for Him to be alone? Couldn’t He focus on God in a crowd just as easily? 

But I think we can easily forget that Jesus was also human. He was susceptible to distraction like us. He was stretched to His physical limits and bombarded by the needs of others around Him. He also came to show us the rhythm of a healthy God-honoring life. That included solitude–withdrawing alone to be with God and no one else. 

Solitude makes us more aware that God provides the spiritual strength needed to endure and overcome.

Comer writes that Jesus valued solitude over sleep, at certain points. Solitude must be truly vital to our souls if Jesus Himself had to practice it! Especially now during self isolation or quarantine, it is the perfect time to practice solitude and incorporate it into our rhythm of life if it’s not already part of our routines.  

Again, solitude is about inner fulfillment. It’s a place where we can slow down enough to recognize where we might be grasping for fulfillment apart from God, and pray for His help to let that go. In solitude, we make time and space to remember that true fulfillment comes from God alone. In that way, solitude is just like worship. 

Solitude is a form of worship.    

The wilderness, or a place of spiritual solitude, is a recurring place in the Bible. It is a place of testing (Psalm 106:14), a place of purification (Mark 1:3-4), and a place of strengthening (Matthew 4:1). In the wilderness, all the focus is on God (Deuteronomy 8:15), and people are sustained by Him, lacking nothing (Nehemiah 9:21). 

Jesus started His ministry by first spending forty days and nights alone in the wilderness. 

The wilderness can be a place of refinement, a place of gaining confidence, even for Jesus. For us it could be a place where we learn patience, trust in God, and dependence on Him. In Matthew 6:6 solitude allows for more exclusive focus on God. Matthew 14:23 shows solitude as a place of concentrated prayer. Again in Mark 1:35 it is an intentional place of great fellowship with God. Solitude can be a wonderful help in our spiritual journey. Yet it, or any spiritual discipline, isn’t the point.  

The point isn’t the spiritual practice itself, the point is connecting in relationship with God. 

Like all spiritual disciplines, solitude is a tool. Doing the practice is not the end goal. Connection with God is. Prayer is. Worship and communication is. But solitude can be a wonderful place, as Jesus demonstrated by withdrawing often to practice it. It doesn’t always have to be seen as the means to an end, although learning and growth for what is next often occur there. God shows us that being where we are, right where we are, is part of the journey of life that He takes us each on. It takes faithfulness on our part now with what we’ve been given in order to advance to the next step of our journey.

Solitude, or your own spiritual wilderness, may be a beginning place for something amazing in your life. Press in. Talk to God about what that might be and what He’s teaching you while you’re in the wilderness. 

Jesus is the whole point of solitude.

I encourage you to press into the discipline of solitude. As the world is on hold, may you use this unique time to draw close to Jesus.

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