Faith or Stubbornness

There is the fine line between faith and stubbornness. faith is believing that God is going to do something even though there is no current evidence to prove that. Stubbornness is a determination to keep doing what I want to do even though all evidence tells me I should do something different. The two things are completely different and yet often they can be confused for each other.

I’ve met many people who were stubborn but thought  they were exercising faith. I have met people who were exercising faith but others thought they were just being stubborn. There is a fine line between the two that I think is absolutely critical to understand.

Faith looks forward to the future of what God is going to do. Stubbornness  looks to the past with a determination to keep doing what I want to do. Faith has a vision but stubbornness has nostalgia. Faith bears fruit that produces righteousness. Stubbornness produces fruit that looks more like the flesh. 

But it is easy to deceive ourselves when we want our way.

Stubbornness and faith might look alike in the beginning but in the end they produce very different results. 

Here is a challenging question: Are we exercising faith or are we just being stubborn?


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Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY