How to Strengthen your Faith when Life is Hard

Have you ever found yourself feeling so stretched thin that you don’t know how to survive another day? You know that you just need to trust God, but you just can’t muster up any more faith? Well I have some encouraging scripture for you to help you renew your faith in God, to strengthen you as a sister in Christ.

Open up your Bible to Ephesians 6, but before you read, consider your circumstances. Take note of all the things in your life that are causing stress- the relationships that are always taking but never giving, the accumulation of responsibilities between your home, your family, and your workplace, deadlines approaching, traffic! If you need to, write everything you can think of down on a piece of paper. Now let’s read Ephesians 6:10.

What are you fighting?

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.”

How does it feel to read that verse? Does it seem impossible to be strong? If you’re like me, you have tried to be strong throughout your whole life. Maybe you’ve finally come to a breaking point and you’re ready to give up. Let me tell you that your strength is powerless, but there is new strength for you that never runs out of power! Let’s keep reading.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

Remember all of those struggles that you wrote down? Of course you do! Let’s look at that list again. Think of what these things are doing to your relationship with God. Are they bringing you closer to God or causing your faith to stumble? The devil is very crafty and will disguise everything he possibly can to lead you away from your Father. That’s not to say that an overbearing mother-in-law or your arrogant boss is standing with the enemy, but he sure could use those circumstances that you’re in as extra burdens on you to weigh you down. BUT we have a God who has defeated the enemy and is telling us how to get out from under those burdens!

How do you defend yourself?

“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist…”

We’re starting with the belt of truth. What is a belt for? It’s to secure something into place. If you have truth secured to you, it’s locked in and not going anywhere, this will certainly help you in your defense against the enemy. So what is truth? In John 17:17, Jesus is praying for His disciples to be sanctified by truth and that the Word of God is truth. In John 14:6, He says that HE is the way, the truth and the life. With both of those passages, the truth is Jesus! When we put on the belt of truth, we are securing Jesus to ourselves.

“…with the breastplate of righteousness in place”

In order to put on the breastplate of righteousness, we must first become aware of where our righteousness comes from. We can’t be in sin and have righteousness. The only way we could even consider clothing ourselves with righteousness is by the work Jesus did on the cross. Romans 10:4 says that “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

And the breastplate protects your heart. The heart is where everything flows from, your language, your thoughts, and your feelings. Keeping in mind that we’re fighting against spiritual darkness, it only makes sense that we have to protect our hearts with the righteousness of Christ Jesus.

“and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

When you’re walking on rocky ground, you want something to protect your feet. When something is rocky, it’s unstable, or uncertain. The enemy does everything he can to get you to doubt what God has done for you. As we’re journeying through life here on earth, we will walk on rocky and uncertain ground.

But the gospel, the good news, of peace gives us the assurance that we are forever joined to the family of God. Anything that the enemy tries to throw at us can’t trip us up if we have fitted our feet with this assurance or readiness.

“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

I began this article with asking you about your faith journey. You may be in a place where you can’t muster up any faith, making it seem as though your shield is missing. Maybe you’ve felt like you’ve gotten hit with some flaming darts of the enemy. I’ve got some happy news for you, Ephesians 6 never said anything about your faith.

‭You see it all through the Psalms, but especially in Psalm 91:4, it says “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” God’s faithfulness is your shield. There is already a shield around you that is blocking the attacks of the enemy. It’s HIS faithfulness and pleasure to protect you, not yours. All you need to do is trust in God and rest in Him!!

“Take the helmet of salvation…”

If we remember back to before the fall of man, Adam and Eve lived in perfect union with God, which has been God’s desire for us the whole time. The way that man sinned was by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which led them to thinking that they should be ashamed. The enemy hasn’t stopped putting lies in our heads and leads us into overthinking. We were never designed to think so much, but to trust the Lord to guide our paths.

Romans 12:2 talks about how the ways of the world are not what we should be thinking about, rather our minds need to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Our salvation from sin brought us back to union with God, the place where we weren’t overthinking, but trusting. We block the attacks of the enemy, we stop overthinking, through believing that we are saved by His grace through faith.

What is your spiritual weapon?

“and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

This is the only actual offensive piece of armor. The only way that you will actually be able to stand and fight the enemy is through the Word of God. We see in John 1 that the Word is Jesus. And we see in Matthew 4 that Jesus battles the devil with scripture. The words in the Bible are actually alive and it’s Jesus. Proverbs 18:21 says that the “tongue holds the power of life and death.” If our words hold that weight, imagine how powerful the Word of God is!

The Bible also says in Hebrews 4:12 that “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Nothing else can do that! When we declare scripture out loud, memorize it, and live by it, we are destroying the works of the enemy and he will not stand.

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests...”

We often stop reading after verse 17, but this right here in verse 18 is so important! With all of the armor that you put on, it’s important that we pray. Unless you are gifted in seeing the mystical realm, you don’t actually know what’s going on. If you have a prayer language, use it as a tool to let the Spirit pray words through you. This is an example of why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 to desire to pray in tongues.

If you don’t have a prayer language, then ask God for one or ask Him to teach you how to pray in the Spirit. Some people don’t receive a “prayer language” but can pray filled with the Spirit.

How do you strengthen your faith by this armor?

So the way you strengthen your faith is actually not you at all. It’s through Jesus and His work on the cross. We have security, identity, assurance, hope, protection, safety, the Holy Spirit, and a weapon of mass destruction when we put on the armor of God. It is returning to remembrance of what Jesus did for you.

In addition to that, abiding with Him is key, read the Word of God and let it seep into your soul. Highlight and underline anything that sticks out to you. Letting God be the ruler of your life is so important to allow HIM to protect you from the enemy.