How to NOT Walk Away From Your Faith (3 Tips)

Pay attention to what you underline. It tells a story. And in First and Second Chronicles, the story is of straying hearts, ours. God’s grieved.

God speaks. We ignore and go our own way. It’s not just a tale of kings stooping to the unthinkable, but of us with our own divided hearts and fallible choices.

How can faith fizzle out before the end of a mostly well-lived life? I ask as I read of great kings, guided by godly counsel, blessed by the Eternal, who “did not remain faithful to God and His messages” (2 Chron. 25:14, The Voice).

We remember. The fall. The way it was unexpected, or not. How it hurt. How it still hurts.

What went wrong? is a laden question, holding our hopes for ourselves, our leaders, our kids. Will they? Will I? What then? stirs fear, shame, or pride.

Let’s hold our questions gently as we search for answers within the ancient text. Because these inspired words and real-life stories are for now as they were for then. Remembrance. Clues. Through-lines. Promises and warnings.

As I look for what went wrong, here’s what I find: Instead of whole-hearted followers, we let other things inch in and distract. We swell with pride and self-sufficiency. And we downplay our need for godly counsel and accountability.

How to NOT Walk Away From Your Faith

Let’s take a closer look because we owe it to ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and all we love to root so deep into Christ that nothing tugs more ardently at our hearts. You and I are not passive acceptors of whatever happens. We go to battle with songs of praise and wisdom from tattered Bible pages and ruthless, trusting obedience. We lock arms with our people and hold each other up when we can’t stand on our own.

We go to battle with songs of praise and wisdom from tattered Bible pages and ruthless, trusting obedience (Twyla Franz).

1. Knees to the Floor

It’s easier to spot pride with a far-out view. Across time, a page, a room. But in your very own life with your bent to be right and hold onto control it’s sneaky. Reading through the Old Testament, and finishing with the Chronicles for Mary Demuth’s 90 day Bible reading challenge, showed me that’s how it went for them too. The kings who fell. The ones who started out bad. The ones who turned evil partway through. It snuck up on them as it can for us too.

Pride self-elevates instead of God-glorifies. Self-sustains instead of trusting Him. Pride won’t bend low, bend the ear, humble the heart.

Make a practice of going lower instead of higher. Down to your knees beneath His glory-heavy presence. Face pressed to the floor in awe and surrender. Show up when you feel like it and when you don’t. In the quiet moments alone with God you’ll battle pride and He’ll wipe your tears and pull you in tighter.

I see this between Old Testament lines: when humans get low, God’s always glorified. Pride can’t take over when the heart is laid open and vulnerable before Him.

2. Wholehearted Surrender

This story on repeat through history: we topple when our hearts divide.

Like pride, it’s starts subtle. For king after king in Old Testament history, it was high places not removed. Even during the reigns of good kings who worshipped the one true God, these high places (where pagan gods were worshipped) were left untouched. But they couldn’t worship God fully with this foothold intact, and we can’t either.

Today it’s less about idols made with hands and more about what we hold in clenched fists. Our reputation, rightness, responsibilities as if we can guarantee security and stave away shame.

Try as we will to wrap our arms around it all, we can’t cling to Christ when we’re grasping at everything else. What we reach for grows roots. We surrender to what we hold.

The answer to a divided heart is wholehearted surrender. A tender, repentant heart. Soft, open hands. God over everything.

3. Steady Community

Trailing through these stories we see pride and devotion to lesser things. But there’s another red flag—something missing rather than there: steady community.

Maybe we’re a bit like King Rehoboam, who disregarded the advice of his father Solomon’s advisors, and instead asked “the opinions of his childhood friends who were more likely to give him the advice he wanted to hear” (2 Chronicles 10:8). We’d rather be affirmed in our rightness than grapple with our lack. Justify what we already decided rather than hear another perspective.

We need God first and foremost. But He made us to need each other too. Made us to knit hearts and link arms and know the aches and breaks in each others’ stories.

God made us to need each other quote by Twyla Franz

In the knowing and being known, extending and receiving, bearing and believing, we help each other stay strong. Avoid our default ruts and blind spots. Hear God’s voice. Do that hard thing. Trust. Surrender. Bend low. Raise our hands in praise.

If you don’t have this kind of community yet, here’s what I want you to do. Pray for it. Then pursue it. Right where you are, with someone you see often. Maybe it’s a neighbor, a classmate, a co-worker. Someone who attends your small group or church. Sits next to you on the bleachers.

Open up first. Share what you and God are really talking about. Tell how He’s good and also not done. Highlight God, the Hero, and you, the loved.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we choose a posture of humility as we behold Your glory. We bring You our messy, heavy questions. Our doubts and our lack. Our love and our worship. We choose surrender. Accountability. Community. You.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

Missional Neighboring 101

This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Download your FREE sneak peek today! Also, get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.