When I was younger, I got this awesome little gerbil. His name was Zorro. My parents were hesitant about getting this furball for me. They had concerns that I was too young, I wasn’t going to be able to take care of it, I would forget to feed it, etc., etc. Well, about a couple of weeks later, they were right. Zorro was not immortal, although he will always be a hero in my book.
Now, I did try my best to take care of the little one. Well, I tried. Looking back, it might not have been the best I had in me. In order for Zorro to live, it needed to be nurtured. The gerbil had to have my attention, it fully relied on me for survival. And I, the young 10 year old William, failed him. I went from telling my friends, “Hey, I have a gerbil!” to “I had a gerbil…”
A few weeks ago, while talking to other Christians, I mentioned that we are in a dilemma known as Gerbil Faith. It pains me to see so many young adults come to church when the semester starts only to never see them again. The survival of our faith is in our hands. Like little Zorro, our faith needs our attention. We need to nurture it and provide for it. I can’t expect to overcome adversity and temptations when my faith isn’t strong. Students can’t expect to say no to negative circumstances when they have lackluster faith. My prayer is that we never go from saying “I go to church and have a strong faith” to “Well, I went to church and don’t have faith at all.”
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
2 Peter 3:18
Blessings,
William S.
William Sharp 
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