Struggling Faith

   I've experienced seasons of struggling faith but never like this. When people told me that adopting is hard, I had no idea what they meant. Now I'm living it.
   The longer the adoption drags on, the more my faith takes a hit. I never thought it would snail along this slow...and it's far from over. Some days I struggle to believe in the goodness of God. I wonder what God is doing...or if He is doing anything at all. My file has been waiting for a single signature for 15 months--that's no movement for 15 months and counting.
   Turns out, my faith was fashioned on my own expectations. When things didn't happen according to my time frame and according to my sense of fairness and justice, my "faith" faltered.
   When I realized what my faith was built on, I was broken. Peter, too, was convinced of the strength of his faith. Peter wept when he came face to face with the weakness of his faith (see Mark 14). I wept as well.
   Sometimes life leaves us at a loss for words. Nothing makes sense. We worry. We despair. We question. From the hidden depths, these moments reveal more about our faith than we like.
   Oftentimes what causes the struggle is that we are expecting our faith to bring clarity. But faith won't make things clear because faith is a matter of trust not certainty. And trust requires a certain amount of unanswered questions.
   And that was my problem. I wanted all my t's crossed and all my i's dotted. Timelines our agency gave us, I actually expected them to happen. I can see now that my faith was being placed in others, and when timelines came and went with no movement my faith was rocked.
   With my true faith revealed, I came to see that God couldn't part my Red Sea because I was too busy placing my faith in man. Only when I stop relying on myself and on others and learn to rely on God alone will I be able to build my faith to a level where my trust in God carries me through any storm.
   Faith is not an event; it's a journey full of overwhelming disappointments, sorrows, and seasons of waiting, as well as countless joys and victories. But the beauty is that every obstacle is an opportunity to grow.
   The fact is that following God's plan doesn't always produce the results we hoped it would. Just because we apply Biblical principles doesn't mean we'll get what we want. Walking by faith just doesn't work that way.
   If I believe that my temporary desires, in this case for my son, matter far more than God's glory, then I am deluding myself. And my faith will suffer.
   The truth is that I'm selfish. I want life a certain way. I want my son home. I've begged. I've pleaded. I've cried buckets of tears. All to no avail.
   When our heart's longings are not satisfied, the pain deepens and we may begin to question God. We find ourselves coping instead of overcoming, languishing instead of thriving.
   I've had to face the fact that I've been expecting God to behave or perform in a certain way. Now that the source of my faith struggle has been discovered, I am working my way out of the pit my expectations threw me into.
   The first step is repentance, for I wasn't truly allowing God to be God. I have surrendered my desires to Him and have accepted the fact that this adoption will not happen as soon as I'd like it to.
   I am placing my hope in God alone. If my happiness is rooted in the hope of my circumstances, my faith will fail. My hope is in the Lord (see Psalm 39:7).
   I'm looking at the big picture. There's more to this adoption delay than meets the eye. God is doing things behind the scenes that I just can't see. His every move is meticulously orchestrated; His timing, crucial. God alone knows every facet of this adoption that must come together to complete His perfect plan.
   I am learning that my faith struggles are not about my personal failures any more than they were about Peter's. God is out to transform my heart. He makes all things new, not merely better.
   Every day I am reaffirming my trust in God. If I can trust God for my salvation, certainly I can trust Him for this adoption.
   I'm also changing my perspective. Whether or not I understand it, there is a component to this adoption that I can't quite see and it just may be a blessing in disguise. I am trusting God that this pathway of pain is actually a journey to joy.
   I overestimated my ability to handle this adoption and found my faith floundering as a result. My faith struggle no longer discourages me though, because now I see it as an opportunity to encounter God. The more I press into Him, the more my trust and faith grows. And for that, the struggle is worth every moment.