For all of my Christian years I prayed for a spirit of honesty but was never able to get it until I came in full contact with my human frailty. As I interact with my weakness as a Christian and humanity and that outside of Christ there is truly no life and truth, but simply that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that it is simply and purely by his grace that we live – until then, I was not able to be truly open and honest.

Having come face to face with my sinfulness as person, though redeemed by Christ, I am able to be unashamedly honest is most areas of my life, particularly those that are of crucial importance, especially as it relates to an interactionary life with public.

Confronting weakness and acknowledging it as well as the practice of restraint, I have found to be the greatest weapon in fighting battles that are not waged in the natural but in fact impact the natural.

This confrontation with my weaknesses have enabled me to practice integrity and honesty as much as I am able in a given moment and through this practice, I have been strengthened in my faith and in some aspects of overcoming temptation.

Where as in those moment where I questioned the validity of the Christian Faith, and to my surprise found it wanting, not as a measure of its founder, but as a measure of those who practice it, I can now honestly say that I am proud to be a Christian and I consider the Christian faith, not to be among the greatest, but to be the greatest. With all of its perceived faults, it is to me the faith to be, the faith of all seasons. I am glad I am a Christian, and what I also found out is that there is nothing wrong with Christianity. The problem lies with its adherents.

Inherently, the Christian faith requires a certain exclusive commitment that most if not all of its followers find difficult to fulfil. But that’s the beauty of the faith. The process of trying, the refining as gold and silver is refined to bring out the purest quality jewels.
And so we who call ourselves Christians are like diamonds in the rough, gold and silver being refined by fire. As we are refined, our impurities are filtered out, as we are dealing with humans and not stones whose ways are ingrained and sometimes harder than granite, it is understandable that there will be many blunders.

Through the process of refining also, it is to be noted that it is not all who call themselves Christians will make it to the finish product, some will falter along the way unfortunately and some will be destroyed. Those who make it to the end however are those who have chosen to endure the hard sufferings and trials associated with obeying the faith.

Some will say that it is impossible to live the faith and so will chose their own path or their own way of expressing the faith, hence the many divisions and heresies.

The Christian faith I will reiterate is not an easy life to live, but it is possible to live it in a way that is pleasing to God and Christ.
The two greatest blunders of those who enter the faith are

1. Those who claim that it is impossible to live up to the requirements of the faith.
2. Those who fail to acknowledge the human element – that of inherent frailty and weakness.

The greatest way to overcome this I have found out is to:

1. (In response to the first point ) – Simply commit to the faith. Where there is a will there is a way. If a person is seriously committed to something or someone, there is absolutely no way that anyone can deter that commitment.

We fail to commit however because we believe that we cannot live up to the commitment. Honestly however, if one is truly committed, several mountains would have been crossed in one giant leap. Contemporary Christians however fail to commit, for one reason or the other.

2. The second way to overcome the second hurdle is simply to adopt an attitude of honesty and reliance on Jesus. One would think that honesty is second nature to Christians, it should be but it’s not. Honesty and truth are foundations of the Christian faith and there is no compromise where those two virtues are concerned in the eyes of God. If we simply adopt an attitude of honesty and confession, we’d have confronted our weakness and frailty, thereby taking away the power of the temptation and the frailty or weakness. If we acknowledge that we are humans and that we are subject to failures then we will seize to rely on ourselves and to rely on God instead.

In this age of individualism, relying on God is not popular; however the Christian that would be serious about their faith cannot give in to the spirit of humanism. The Christian must acknowledge that there is no way he can expect to live the Christian life victoriously without complete reliance on God. The Christian must learn to say daily, “By His Grace...”