Former NFL player Tim Tebow recently spoke about his faith in an interview with Larry King. During his appearance on Larry King Now, Tebow said, "I really believe faith is like a muscle, and the more you work it, the stronger it grows. Sometimes you might strain that muscle too and take a step back, and you have to get it stronger again."
His comments raise some interesting questions about how we view faith and how we go about getting it and keeping it.
How would you describe your faith? Weak? Strong? Somewhere in the middle? Depending on where you place yourself on the scale, pinpointing the vitality of your faith on a scale might satisfy or sadden you. Either way, you still need to work on strengthening it.
So many of us can make the mistake of thinking of faith as this powerful but ignore the fact that we need to work at it. The strength of our faith isn't always determined by how we initially came to Christ or how we feel about our faith at the moment. Even if we currently have a strong faith—complete confidence in Christ, surrender to God's will, fearless in the face of the future, or a weak one—taking steps to improve it should remain a priority.
Just as we look after our physical health through exercise, so too do we need to take care of our spiritual health by exercising our faith.
Work on your 'wait' —Wait on God without worry
Some of us deal with waiting better than others, but one thing's for sure: God is going to make you wait.
How we respond to these periods of waiting reveals the true strength of our faith. We can't always see what God has in store for us, but faith means that we wait without worrying.
Need to work on your "wait"? The next time God doesn't give you what you want when you want it, try to understand what He's trying to teach you instead of rushing to find an alternative way to get it. Also use the time to appeal to Him to renew your patience each day and focus your mind on what you can do for others while you wait for Him to communicate His message to you.
Watch your diet—Be careful about what you're consuming
When we're trying to strengthen our physical form, we pay a lot of attention to the food we consume. Considerate consumption isn't something that we should restrict solely when we want to maintain or make changes to our bodily health. It's a vital aspect of developing a healthy faith, too.
The staple source for our spiritual growth should be God's Word. Without habitual reflection on what God's actually said, what He wants us to do, what He promises, our faith weakens. Relying on short-term uplift from ungodly sources will only weaken our faith in the long haul.
Does our diet need a detox? We can all recognise the obvious temptations in our lives? Act to avoid them and turn to the Bible for sustenance instead.
Incorporate rest days into your routine
Fitness fanatics will all attest to the necessity of taking rest days for anyone with a regular exercise routine.
If you're not familiar with the concept within the fitness context, it's essentially a day where you reduce the intensity of your workout. It doesn't necessarily mean making zero effort to exercise but rather, abstaining from exerting the same amount of energy you would otherwise in order to recover, strengthen and grow.
As Christians, we're not above the need to pencil in rest days within our spiritual schedules. It might seem crazy to consider pausing a vital step in the journey to getting your faith into better shape, but that's probably because you're thinking of it as a complete halt. A rest day doesn't mean you take a day off being a Christian. Think of it as a time where reflection, meditation and recovery take precedent.
