April 10

Then You Try to Shake the Post

Even your spiritual practices are based on faith. If you didn’t have faith, you wouldn’t even be practicing. Everything requires faith. That is why the scriptures say that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.

Strong conviction is faith. If you have conviction, it is easy to accomplish what you set out to do. But before you even begin, you must be convinced. Otherwise you will just think, “Oh, okay, I’ll try to do it.” Don’t think that way. Your thought should be, “This is what I want, no matter what happens. All the rest is nothing. I won’t stop until I get it! This is the most important thing in my life.”

Tests will come to see if you are really strong in your faith. Do you know how to install a flag post or a telephone post in the ground? You dig a hole and put the post in; but you don’t just leave it at that. You put stones all around and hammer it to make it strong. You hammer the ground all around, and then you try to shake the post. If it shakes, you hammer again. As long as it keeps shaking, you keep on hammering. When do you stop hammering? When it stops shaking.

Life is like that. As long as you are shaking, you’ll be hammered. It’s true. God is trying to make you steady, and unless that hammering occurs you cannot be strong and steady. So don’t be afraid to face the hammering.