And I Thought I Had Faith…
We entered the New Year excited, because of God’s promises we had received. Promises that He was with us every step of the way as long as we were doing all that He had asked us to do, that we would see a new realm of our personal relationship and ministry with Him, that we would see God move in a mighty way and establish His purposes in and through our lives and that there will be an acceleration in every aspect of our life towards our God-given call and destiny. I thought I was ready for what God was about to do. After all, God said He would be with me all the way and I had faith in all that God said.
I was about to learn a lesson that I won’t be forgetting any time soon. When God intends to do something glorious in our lives, He begins with exposing our weaknesses (Click to Tweet). And that is exactly what was about to happen with me.
It was the second week of the year and I could feel the heat of the circumstances rising around me. I held on to the promises of God. But by the third week, I found myself completely shaken, scared and had begun questioning the promises of God. Not many like to share about their weakness but as I write this post I know that, there are many people out there who are going through these moments where you have completely forgotten what God has promised, owing to the size of our difficulties. My prayer today is that by the time you finish reading this post, you would regain that lost confidence in God’s promises and His word.
Assuming that I had left my secure job and stepped into working for the Lord full time, I really thought I had faith. How many times has it happened that you thought you were really good at something and God proved it to be otherwise? Yes, He exposed my weakness to me. Even though I had God’s promises, when times were difficult I had lost all hope. I came to a point that I sat at home sulking over the problem. I did not find any faith in me. I was scared.
In a matter of just two days, God swooped in and sovereignly took care of my circumstances. During this time, among many other scriptures, God spoke to me from the story where Jesus slept in the boat through a storm when the disciples were scared to death. They woke Him up saying, “Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing”? In a moment, Jesus commanded the storm to calm down and it was all good again. And He asked them,”Where is your faith?”
I have read this story, like most of you, so many times. But the question that the Holy Spirit stirred in my heart was, how could Jesus sleep in the midst of a storm when the disciples could barely hold on?
Philippians 4:6-7 says, ‘6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Jesus could sleep through the storm, not because He was the Son of God and knew nothing could go wrong but because He was not anxious in that situation. Simply stated, there was a storm outside, but Jesus didn’t allow the storm to enter His heart. Yes we pray, but we allow the storm to have the better of us. That’s called being anxious. I had prayed but the storm was now in my heart.
Oh, how I wish I could explain how ashamed I felt when I understood what the Lord taught me that day! Thank God, He does not impose guilt on us, but allows His peace to come in and calm the storm raging in our hearts.
If you are in a similar place in your life today, let me encourage you that you are not the only one in a storm. I was and I am pretty sure it was not the last storm I will ever face in my life. But, the next time you and I are in a storm we will not just pray, but ensure that the storm remains outside and not in our hearts because our hearts belong completely to Jesus.
If you are in the midst of a situation and are anxious, I would love to pray with you. Do leave your comments and prayer requests in the section below. We love to hear from you.