“Unless Your Faith Is Firm” by Melanie Rigney (@melanierigney)

“Unless Your Faith Is Firm” by Melanie Rigney

Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

But within sixty years and five, Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nation. Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm! (Isaiah 7:9)

God upholds his city forever. (Psalm 48:9)

“For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11:23-24)

Piety

Stand, o stand firm/Stand, o stand firm/Stand, o stand firm/And see what the Lord can do. –Cameroon traditional song.

Study

Let’s be honest. Firm faith is a lot easier to have when everyone’s healthy, when you have enough food and money (and maybe even more than enough), and when your world is tooling around just as it should. It’s easy to give thanks and spew out platitudes about the Lord’s goodness.

Credit: geralt (https://pixabay.com/en/words-letters-disillusionment-416435/)

But when people you love are in hospice, you’ve been out of work for months, and anxiety and worry are taking up what seems to be permanent residence in your head and soul, it’s like being in quicksand. If the Almighty is all-powerful, why doesn’t He chase away the bad? Don’t all those years of rosaries and Mass attendance count for something?

And of course, they do. It’s just hard to remember that we’ve been in these places before, and His grace has guided us through them. Not necessarily the way we would have liked, but we get through it.

Several years ago, I was on a Cursillo team. For another team member, the Weekend fell on the first anniversary of her husband’s death, a man to whom she’d been married for decades. When she gave her talk, she brought up the anniversary and how difficult it was for her. Then she raised her arms straight over her head and said, “Sometimes, all you can do is stand firm.”

Giving into the demons happens. It happened to those in Sodom. It happened to some of the Israelites. It happens to us. But the Lord is always, always there waiting for when we manage to breathe deeply—or bottom out—and start anew by standing firm with Him.

Action

Identify a demon that’s feeding on your fears. Pray for the faith to starve it to death.