According to Hugh Binning, challenging times when everything seems so much of a struggle are exactly the circumstances where faith should be prompted to be most active. “At such a time there ought to be all the more exercise of faith, and laying hold of the grounds of consolation in God.”
Challenges in a strange way can even strengthen faith, and certainly they give us ample motivation to keep seeking God until we know we have got through to him. How can we get out of our spiritual inertia? In this updated extract from a sermon on Isaiah 64, Binning tackles the question, When and how are we stirred up to spiritual activity?
1. Difficulties Call for Strong Faith
As difficulties grow, faith should fortify itself against them so much the more. The greater the storm, the quicker faith should flee into the chambers.Faith in a calm day gets no trial. Faith gets lazy when it does not have much to do. But without fresh and new supplies of grace, faith cannot hold out in a temptation. It is a singular sign of a noble and divine faith that it can lay hold on God and keep him when he makes to go away—that can recognise the kindness of Jesus even when he acts as if he does not know us —that can stand on the ground of the promises when there is not a foot-breadth of a hopeful sign in the circumstances to build on.
2. Difficulties Demand A Sure Faith
The most pressing time for making sure of your part in God is a time when there is no external advantage to beguile you, a time when the only happiness is to be one with God. Therefore, anyone who, in time of calamities and judgments, is not awakened to put their eternal estate out of question, is in a dangerous position.
3. Difficulties Call Out A Focused Faith
The Lord loves faith in a difficulty best. Then it is the most single-hearted and focused, and the cleanest. That is the kind which honours him most, and which most glorifies his truth and faithfulness, and sufficiency and mercy. In this way it is most purely elevated above created things, and pitches most fully on God. It is when people say, ‘No help for my soul, but thou art my portion.’ God is most commended when he is set alone. Prosperity brings him down among the creatures, and undisturbed, complacent faith makes little distinction. But awakening faith grips strongly and singly, and puts God alone.
4. Difficulties Require Special Seeking
Often, when God is departing, “none stirreth up himself to lay hold on him.” Although there may be plenty praying, and doing many duties, yet it is nothing beyond the ordinary. The varieties and combinations of new reasons for supplications results neither in greater frequency nor more fervency in our appeals to God.
5. Seek with Diligence
There is very little diligence in seeking God, even when God seems to be saying farewell to the land, and going away. Still nobody comes in as an intercessor. They keep on in their old way of praying, and never add to it, come what may. Does anyone rise above their ordinary ways, however high the tide of God’s dispensation rises?
Instead the impression made by God’s change of countenance should make an effect that would be visibly seen on how his people behave. There should be such a distance between your ordinary and such times as between sleeping and waking, that whatever access to God you normally have, you would stir up and go beyond it according as matters call.
Will God count your public fasts a performance of this duty? Unfortunately, we fast sleeping, and no one stirs himself up to these things! Is there any difference between your days of humiliation and any other sabbath? And is there any difference between a sabbath and a weekday, save the external duty?
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It can be hard to understand why certain things are happening, or even to remember that there is a big picture. But recalling how God has worked in the past, whether in our lives or in the lives of others, gives us hope for the present and future. It helps us to trust that, even though we may not be able to see the big picture, the One who can is in control, patiently putting all the pieces in place. 

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
I wonder if you enjoy jigsaw puzzles. I have to admit that I don’t particularly like them – I don’t have the patience required! But my mother is a fan. When I visit, there is often a special mat on the dining room table with a partially finished puzzle that she gradually works on for days, if not weeks, until the picture is finished.
When I read the Bible, it seems to me that some of the stories are a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. God is slowly and steadily putting different pieces in place which will one day form a full picture. In fact you could say that the whole story of the Bible is like that as God puts together the pieces of His plan of salvation.
We find one such story in the book of Esther. The main action of the plot to destroy the Jews doesn’t begin until into Chapter 3, but in Chapters 1 and 2 we see God (even though His name is never mentioned in the book) putting various pieces in place which will be essential to the final picture. For example:

Queen Vashti refuses to obey the command of her husband, King Ahasuerus, to appear at his feast in Susa in Chapter 1. As a result, she is banished from his presence. This happens in the third year of King Ahasuerus’s reign.
Mordecai and Esther are two Jews living in Susa. For some reason they had decided not to return to Jerusalem at the end of the exile. Mordecai is descended from Kish, a Benjaminite.
The King decides to hold a competition to find a replacement queen. Esther is one of those taken into the palace to take part. She finds favour with everyone involved, including the King, who decides to make her his Queen. This happens in the tenth month of the seventh year of his reign

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God’s people, with all our faults and immaturities, are God’s glorious works in progress. Though our hearts are often fickle, they are also cleansed. Therefore, we don’t write one another off, but commit to one another, rejoice with one another, give grace to one another. In the process, we will certainly be disappointed, but Jesus will even more certainly be a sufficient salve for our wounds. 

We’ve all been disappointed by someone. We’ve all known what it feels like to be let down. The bitter taste, the sharp sting, the nagging sense of betrayal — it hurts when people fail us. It hurts even more when the people who fail us are our friends. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the potential wounds from disappointment. David knew that deeper pain:
For it is not an enemy who taunts me — then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. (Psalm 55:12–13)
In another psalm, he says, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9).
As Christians, our deepest relationships are often those found and cultivated within the local church. And rightfully so, for, as the church, we are “members one of another” (Romans 12:5). Unlike all our other relationships, we are called to “love one another with brotherly affection (and) outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). This makes church relationships uniquely deep and glorious. That means they can also be uniquely, deeply disappointing.
Do you know this by experience? If so, how have you sought to handle it?
The Way of the Cynic
One way to handle this potential for disappointment is cynicism. As a defense mechanism, cynicism markets itself as a way to avoid future disappointment by assuming everyone’s an imposter. The cynic leans on his familiar formula: “You only do (action), because you want (result).” He can attribute impure motives to just about anyone, even those in the local church.

The young man volunteering in childcare is only trying to impress his girlfriend.
The older woman attending multiple Bible studies is only trying to earn the respect and admiration of her peers.
The pastor preaching God’s word is only trying to grow his church (and his salary).

No one in our churches, whether in the pulpit, or on the platform, or in the pews, can evade the cynic’s accusations.
Sadly, cynicism often seems to work, at least for the moment. The one who views the whole world as a fraud is very rarely disappointed. Instead, he appears to have exchanged his potential of future disappointment for the present impression of power (“Now I’m the one who gets to criticize”), and control (“I decide if and when to trust them”), and courage (“I don’t need anyone but me”). And yet, those impressions of power, control, and courage, are only just that: counterfeits of the real things. And as counterfeits, they take more than they give.
Consider, after all, the glorious works of God that any cynic must disregard. When face-to-face with a man who has been radically transformed by God, or a woman who has found her happiness in Jesus despite all the suffering she’s endured, or a whole host of elderly believers who have held on faithfully to God since childhood — what can the cynic do but scoff?
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