Having Enduring Faith Even When You Don’t Understand

12 Aug 2015

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight.” Proverbs 4:7 (New Revised Standard Version; NRSV)

Faith has always been meaningful to me. I am still learning how to apply that meaning to my life daily. Faith often pushes us past our fears and into possibility; but what happens when our faith fades? How do we endure and make progress in our lives when we don’t have any understanding or insight?

This Proverb has always been confusing to me, primarily because it seemingly gives the ‘what’ without the ‘how’, “…Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight.” This verse of scripture admonishes us to “get” but doesn’t explain how we should, could or will and I believe it is because it states that this is simply the “beginning of wisdom”; we’ll have to endure to get it all.

Let me share a turn in my journey that I’m still on that may help us get beyond the beginning of wisdom. Once I graduated high school, I went on to begin my undergraduate studies. As the years progressed, I became frustrated and felt stuck. My frustration stemmed from being disappointed in my own lack of effort in my classes and struggling to reconcile how doing well and exerting effort held any true significance to me.

This was an internal roller coaster that I willingly rode on, on one hand, but was too dizzy to get off, on the other. Where was my stability? I let my emotions rule my endeavors and failed many times over. I could have gone to classes and done the work assigned to me, but I didn’t because I didn’t have understanding.

And while I haven’t endured to the end of my undergraduate career just yet, I will–and all the while I’ll be growing in my getting. here’s why, no matter how frustrated I was and how insignificant my classwork seemed/seems, I’m required to endure if I want to finish.

We endure through prayer, studying scripture, fueling our faith through fasting, and knowing that we are equipped to endure. We endure to attain clarity, that’s the “how” for the verse from Proverbs. If we don’t endure until the end, we will only have the beginning of wisdom and we will live plagued with feelings of frustration, lack and failure.

Our getting wisdom comes out of our enduring faith. Be encouraged to keep pushing until the finish, in whatever situation you find yourself in. After you’ve endured, you’ll know why it was required of you. Stay encouraged!

What have you had to undergo without having understanding? How did you endure that situation and/or season? 

 

About the author: De’Nita Moss is a woman who is still trying to figure herself out. Her undergraduate degree in Religion from Rutgers University is currently in progress. She occasionally pens a blog, www.trinityizreal.wordpress.com, that expresses her thoughts on scripture, relationships and love. She is an author of two books of poetry and enjoys photography, good food & good music. Connect with De’Nita on Twitter @trinityizreal.

Photo courtesy of James Kendall.

 

---

---