Overcoming the Five Obstacles to Faith, Part 3: The Heat of the Day
How adding endurance to your faith will produce the miracles you need.
Things will heat up every time we choose to believe God’s Word over what our five senses tell us. The pressure will build, things will appear to be going awry, but be encouraged because this is the natural process of plant growth.
Jesus loved revealing the secrets of the kingdom to His disciples, and revealing the secrets of faith was no exception. He taught us precisely what kind of soil is needed to produce the harvest, including how to handle the heat of the day, the second obstacle.
"But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles." - Matthew 13:20-21
The person with understanding (see part 2) receives the Word with joy, and it starts to take root in their heart. But without any depth of soil they endure only for a short while and are overcome by the heat of the day.
We might be tempted to think that it was the wrong seed, or maybe we just need more seed.
More Seeds Won’t Help
Have you received a word from the Lord and within a week, you’ve forgotten about it? You were overjoyed when you heard the word, but then it felt foreign and unattainable, like a fading memory.
As you recall the message you heard, you remember how you felt at the time, but that word no longer produces any joy, in fact, it brings along with it a sense of disappointment.
Ahh… you think, perhaps what I need is another good word. You grab your phone, navigate to your YouTube channels or podcasts, and start scrolling for the next word-fix.
It’s a dangerous path to be on, one that can make us resistant to the truth.
We don’t need more seed, we just need better soil.
Our Soil Needs Endurance
Faith and endurance always go together. Faith that has not endured will not produce.
Think of Abraham who waited 25 years for the promise of his son, David who waited about 15 years to be made king after being anointed as king, or Jospeh who waited 13 years for his dreams to begin their fulfillment.
This doesn’t mean that everything we believe for in faith will take a long time. Our faith will produce more quickly once we have the depth of soil established.
The lesson we learn from these great heroes in the faith is that endurance is a key component of faith.
The author of the book of Hebrews writes this, right before he pens the chapter, which we now call the “hall of faith”:
"For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:" - Hebrews 10:36
I encourage you to read Hebrews 11, often called the ‘hall of faith,’ if you haven’t recently.
Endurance requires that we believe as we did when we first received the word. Not because it’s easy to do, but because if we don’t, it’s all for naught. If we don’t continue rejoicing and believing in the word, it dies.
For example, if we hear the word about tithing and understand that the Lord will open up the windows of Heaven for us. But before the ink is even dry on the check, the dishwasher breaks. If that weren’t enough, the car breaks, and the bonus we were expecting doesn’t come through.
Is the word as true in the trials and persecution as it was then you first heard it?
This is why James taught us to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (James 1:2-4).
This is the natural path of our growth, perfecting us, transforming us into His likeness.
The trials are not obstacles to our faith, they are the pathway of our faith.
The Contradiction of Faith and Reality
This testing creates a conflict between our faith and our senses.
Jesus told us that persecution would come on account of the word. Persecution doesn’t just mean being thrown in prison for preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Persecution generally refers to the events that try to push you off course from your cause.
The trials that seem to stand in opposition to your faith are persecution. Think of it as contradiction. The events in the natural world, and perhaps even your thoughts at times, mock and ridicule your faith.
With a few victories under the belt, even the contradiction will become exciting because you know what’s coming.
For instance, in my own life, I’ve seen this principle at work through my daughter’s healing journey. She had juvenile arthritis for many years, despite several doctors visits. She wasn’t able to run, roller blade, or do many things that the other girls her age were doing.
She received prayer and was healed, but the next day it came back. She chose to reject that knee pain, and believe that the healing was complete. This happened on-and-off for about two months, until it was gone forever.
This is the journey of the believer. We walk by faith and not by sight. If there was no discrepancy between faith and sight, it would not be faith, would it?
We Must Expect The Heat
Many believers stumble during the testing of their faith because they’re not expecting it as a good thing, a natural part of the process. They think that they’ve done something wrong, or that their faith is weak, or even worse that those promises are not for them or for today.
The farmer who sows the seed knows that the heat of the day is coming. He doesn’t try to prevent the sun from shining on the seeds. They need the sun.
In the same way, our faith needs the heat to grow.
It’s hard to find believers who know how to endure and as time progresses it will become increasingly difficult to find those who are willing to endure through to the harvest.
Will He Find Any With Such Faith?
In Luke 18:2-8, Jesus tells the parable of the persistent woman:
"“There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ” Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”" - Luke 18:2-8
This is the kind of faith that God will honor. Your wealth, stature, seminary degree, net worth, social network, don’t matter. Those things will not produce the harvest.
What matters is persistence.
Anyone who is willing to persist will have their miracle.
Jesus also indicates that this kind of faith will become rare as this dispensation draws to a close. Will He find those who are willing to press through? Will He find those who see their promise more clearly than they see the trials?
Western culture certainly doesn’t do us any favors here. Quick-and-easy has become the norm. And if it’s not quick and easy, find something else.
In the realm of the Kingdom, these contradictions are of great value.
The Testing of Our Faith is More Precious than Gold
The day I returned from the church conference, I started dreaming about the trials that I would experience the next day. The Lord showed me the trial, what He was teaching me through the trial, and the solution to the trial.
This continued for several days. Needless to say, I was excited when the trials for that day surfaced because I understood their purpose in producing the harvest.
I have not had an experience like this since then. The point was that the Lord is intimately involved in your life. He is the one working and finishing your faith.
The testing of our faith is more precious than gold in God’s kingdom. We don’t throw away gold, why would we waste the trials?
The Father wants to act on our behalf, producing the miracles, and quickly. That is His desire. However, He is also teaching us how to handle the heat of the day, giving us deep soil, and clearing up those rocks so that future seeds can also produce their harvest.
Taking Action
Successive disappointments have left Christians disillusioned, struggling to believe in God’s power any longer. But there’s hope in understanding faith’s process. The parable of the sower is the most important because Jesus uses it to reveal how faith works. If we don’t grasp this, we miss our role in nurturing it, and God gets blamed for the lack of growth.
But here’s the truth: God isn’t the one failing us. The Holy Spirit sows the seed if we listen to Him, but it’s up to us to cultivate the soil for miracles to grow.
I encourage you to:
Find a promise in the Word.
Meditate on it.
Understand it.
Believe it.
Rejoice in it.
Expect the clash between faith and reality.
And praise through to the harvest of miracles.
You only need one victory to forever change how you think. And when you’ve overcome, you’ll help many others claim that same victory. This is the multiplication of the harvest: one word producing life in many.
Are you ready to tend the soil for it?