The Endurance of Faith

By Roberta Frazao

What if this temporarily moment of despair and powerlessness
is the intentional position God wants you to be
in, to show you His love, power, and faithfulness? What
if that situation that is keeping you awake all night is
actually an opportunity that God is giving you to develop
your faith ian ways you have never im

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Mar 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781640882584

Book preview

1.png

THE ENDURANCE OF FAITH

Roberta Paula Frazao

Trilogy Christian Publishers

TUSTIN, CALIFORNIA

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Table of Contents

1. The Beginning 1

2. What’s Faith? 5

3. The Small Faith 9

4. The Test of Faith 17

5. Where to Start 21

6. The Endurance of Faith is the Bridge

Between Anguish and Praise 25

7. Joy in the Midst of Trials 31

8. Believe X Disbelieve 37

9. Our Response 41

10. When God Hides Himself 47

11. Prayer: The Stress Remover 53

12. Burden on Top of Burden 59

13. Dealing with the Impossible 65

14. The Long Way X The Short Way 71

15. The Perseverant Prayer 77

16. Fighting Discouragement 83

17. The Big Picture 89

Afterward 95

1

THE BEGINNING

At the age of seven, I accepted Jesus as my Savior. My great journey of faith was just beginning. I remember right after I became a Christian, I also became a regular attendant at Sunday school. As most of the Christian kids, I had my favorite story in the Bible. By coincidence or not, the story of David was the first Bible story I heard in one of my first Sunday school classes. I will never forget the Sunday morning when I heard that story for the first time in my life. The story of the shepherd boy facing a giant caught my attention. David’s faith shocked me! I remember spending the whole Sunday thinking about that story.

As a child, my mind was in awe and wonder. I didn’t understand how a young shepherd could be braver than any of the other men around him. How could his trust in God be something so powerful that caused a giant to fall with only a few stones in his hands? I should admit that for some years in my childhood, King David became a type of superhero—don’t get me wrong, I was just seven years old!

As the time passed, my admiration remained. But as I grew older, I understood that it wasn’t about being a brave superhero but about being someone who has an unshakable faith. No matter how big the problem was, David knew exactly how to turn his eyes to someone bigger than him and recognize that because of his faith in the right One, all things would be possible.

Fast-forward, that great admiration for David remained through the years, and somehow it gave me a different perspective about the importance of faith in life. Some years later, that bold perspective planted inside me by God through David’s story led me to the bravest prayer I could ever make in my early twenties.

I was unsettled; my faith wasn’t as big as it was when I was a kid. It seems that the more we grow, the more we start to process life from a place of logic and reason. Then our faith starts to be molded by a more rational way of thinking; it seems our faith begins to grow weaker over time, and we come to a place where our faith needs to be remade. At that point, the small amount of faith we receive becomes natural faith, and natural faith doesn’t move mountains, natural faith doesn’t like challenges, and natural faith lives in the comfort zone, so it is useless.

God called us for greatness, and natural faith is far from it. I remember at some point I started to miss the bold faith I had when I was a kid, and this confusion led me to the bravest prayer I could ever pray. It was a very simple prayer, almost a whisper. God, give me the faith of David. On that day, alone in my room, my journey to great faith began; that prayer has changed my life—forever. I didn’t know that the path to great faith should run through hardships and storms. I didn’t know we should endure through trials and storms in order to have great faith. Today I can say faith is risky; it takes us out of the comfort zone, but the reward of faith is priceless. Today in my thirties, I am writing this book as an act of faith. In the human eye, this book would be impossible to exist for so many reasons. But I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to do what God has called me to do. I hope this book will help you in many ways and increase your faith to higher levels. Here the journey of endurance in faith begins.

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2019 by Roberta Paula Frazao

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, contact Trilogy Christian Publishing, Rights Department2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

First Trilogy Christian Publishing hardcover edition December 2018

Cover design by Jeff Summers from Toward Something Creative Design Studio ([e-mail])

Trilogy Christian Publishing/ TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-64088-257-7

ISBN: 9781-64088-258-4 (eBook)

The Endurance of Faith

The process of knowing God and