We know that saying that we need to have faith in the Lord and be stronger does not magically make us spiritually stronger. There is no magic. There are no secret formulas for success either in this world or in the next. There are no incantations to cure our ailments, no mantras which open our minds to lasting peace and ecstasy. It requires almost no effort on our part to express our faith and be grateful to our Heavenly Father when things go our way.
Life is difficult.
The real proof of our confidence in the Lord comes when we go on living our lives as we know we should, even when it seems to us that we are only going through the motions of living. For it is in making the endless and apparently insignificant daily choices we must make to live successfully in this world that we also make our choice to follow our Heavenly Father. If we wish to gain a living faith which is confident of the Lord's guiding hand, that is, if we wish to become spiritually strong, we must practice putting our faith, our trust, in Him. We must live as though we already possess the very faith we wish to acquire. Only in this way can we come to know and even sense within our hearts that our Lord would never desert us.