I posted on Facebook today that I was having a particularly frustrating day. And many people responded with encouragement and love. Thank you so much for that.

I don’t want to be scary or sound pitiful in any way. So don’t take this too harshly. For the most part, life is amazing for me & I have millions of things for which to be thankful.

But occasionally I have a bad, bad day. The way it works is that it usually occurs right after some sort of minor success. Like maybe some new sermon series came together well or we redecorated a worship space and it looks great or maybe we helped launch a new River Group. You would think that I would be sky high at those moments.

But what happens is that I start refocusing on the bigger vision… beyond the minor success… and I get overwhelmed. I start thinking things like… “there is just no way…” or “I don’t think that is possible.” And then my faith is tested. I have to ask myself one more time whether or not I believe.

And honestly, I’m not always an extremely “faith filled” person. I have faith… don’t get me wrong. But most of the time the faith that I have is a gift from God, because it didn’t come from my flesh. Left to myself, I tend to give up and quit pretty quickly.

But because of the renewing power of the Spirit of God… He has rebuilt faith in me countless numbers of times. And it usually begins with a bad day.

Henry Blackaby calls this experience a “Crisis of Belief.” And a ‘crisis’ it definitely is.

If you don’t know at all what I”m writing about… maybe you haven’t followed God to dangerous enough places to meet the crisis moments. Maybe you need to consider giving more, serving harder or risking everything. Its really only in those moments that you meet God in the crisis. And when you meet him in a crisis… you really get to know Him on a more intimate level.

I’m thankful for the crisis moments… even though I hate them while they are going on. Because I meet God in the crisis… in the struggle… in the pain.

Today my crisis has to do with Four Rivers Church. It is such a great church. But we still have so far to go. There are literally thousands of unreached people. There are hundreds of communities that need a life giving church or campus of 4RC. There are millions of hours of service to our community that need to be done.

And sometimes it feels like we never have enough money, people, leadership, resources, etc.

With one hand I celebrate the vision God has given me… and with the other I cover my head thinking that it is far beyond what we will ever accomplish.

Fear, anger, frustration, weakness all have the potential to set in at those moments.

But then… just when I least expect it… God shows up. And I meet God in the crisis of belief.

And that is cool!

So, as best I can tell. As long as I’m leading, growing and risking in my relationship with Jesus… there will be crisis… but there will also be an ever increasing amount of ‘belief.’

Thoughts?