Romans 4:20-21
Yet he (Abram) did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Galatians 2:20
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Fight for Faith-Part two
Last month I shared about my struggle over my emotions and my faith and that many times they collide. Yet our emotions are good. Yes they can hinder us at times from seeing clearly, but God created them out of His goodness. It is one part of the many dimensions of who we are. Anger does not always lead us to sin, anxiety does not always lead us astray, nor does sadness leave us hopeless. God uses all these emotions, the good and the bad, to transform us into His image. Do you remember I said I was reading two books? I shared one book with you, let me now share the other. After the women’s retreat and in my time of pity, I picked up “What Happens When Women Walk in Faith” by Lysa TerKeurst. I’ve read this book before, but apparently God needed to use it again in my life. Remember I returned discouraged from the retreat I attended? One of the messages of the retreat was that we are called by God to do something, to serve Him in some capacity. I feel like I have been trying to figure this out for the past few years. I opened the first chapter of that book and guess what it said? God gives every woman a dream. Really? Then what the heck is mine? This idea drove me crazy, not because I don’t believe it, but exactly the opposite. I do believe it and yet I am completely lost about my dream, let alone any dream. I was upset at God. Why would you speak about callings and dreams to me days in a row and then not provide an answer? I continued to journal and deal with the ‘undulation’ of my feelings and my faith. Last month I dealt deeper into these feelings and my faith. This month I have gotten deeper into the root of some other places.
I continued to read the book slowly and the Lord continued to speak to me through the words of the author. The author tells us that whether or not God has made our dream clear or not, He would make it known in His own time and until then there was a waiting period. Don’t you love that word, wait! Yet during the waiting period is where the pruning and growth comes. It’s during this period where He is truly growing me, exposing my heart, and revealing His. As I dived into prayer and with more questions for God, He revealed fears in my life I knew existed, but had no clue how paralyzing they were. The author spoke about two words that convicted my heart. One was surrender. Surrender is, “to yield to the power or control of another…..to abandon.”1 I was not yielding my fears to God, but allowing them to dictate how much faith I would act on and how much risk I would take with God. For the first time I realized how stationary I was because my fears did not allow me to move. At that moment of revelation, I journaled a list of my fears and seeing it on paper was most alarming yet beneficial. Not only did I have to surrender my fears to Him, but I had to abandon all. I have to abandon all my desires and all my hopes at His feet. I am still in this process of surrendering all to Him. I must abandon my own ideas and wants, so that I can be fully free to fulfill His desires and will for my life.
Honor was the other word that stayed in my thoughts for awhile. The author knew that during the waiting period we have to honor Him in everything. The mundane is what was bogging me down, the everyday routine. I even made a list of that routine and it was good to see that on paper as well. This was the list that I needed to learn to put honor back into. The routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work, driving back, going to bed, and so on and so forth. You get me, right? Somehow I needed to honor our amazing God in all these acts. Of course I already know this and if you asked me about it, I would say, yes, we honor God in everything, from the rising of the sun to its going down, but somewhere in the rising of the sun and going to sleep, I lost purpose and focus. I have to be able to honor God in the ordinary parts of life, so that when He asks me to honor Him in the extraordinary, I can do it with confidence.
I have to be honest, from last month to this month, nothing extraordinary has happened or changed. God didn’t part the clouds and give me a message, yet the work of the Spirit in my heart has been extraordinary. Having to truly surrender my fears has been hard and yet freeing. Surrendering means actually exposing that which I’ve been holding onto and letting it go. But there’s no room for pity because as I’m surrendering I’m honoring God and it’s a process, a cycle if you will, that I must go through every day until it becomes part of my life. Remember the law of Undulation? The ups and downs of our hearts, our desires, and our interests are all part of the process. At the end, we still choose how we will act even if how we feel has failed us. In “The Screwtape Letters”, the uncle demon, Screwtape, explains to his nephew something that not only convicted me, but burned in me to be this kind of human. Remember that the Enemy in this book is God. I leave you with his words:
Last month I shared about my struggle over my emotions and my faith and that many times they collide. Yet our emotions are good. Yes they can hinder us at times from seeing clearly, but God created them out of His goodness. It is one part of the many dimensions of who we are. Anger does not always lead us to sin, anxiety does not always lead us astray, nor does sadness leave us hopeless. God uses all these emotions, the good and the bad, to transform us into His image. Do you remember I said I was reading two books? I shared one book with you, let me now share the other. After the women’s retreat and in my time of pity, I picked up “What Happens When Women Walk in Faith” by Lysa TerKeurst. I’ve read this book before, but apparently God needed to use it again in my life. Remember I returned discouraged from the retreat I attended? One of the messages of the retreat was that we are called by God to do something, to serve Him in some capacity. I feel like I have been trying to figure this out for the past few years. I opened the first chapter of that book and guess what it said? God gives every woman a dream. Really? Then what the heck is mine? This idea drove me crazy, not because I don’t believe it, but exactly the opposite. I do believe it and yet I am completely lost about my dream, let alone any dream. I was upset at God. Why would you speak about callings and dreams to me days in a row and then not provide an answer? I continued to journal and deal with the ‘undulation’ of my feelings and my faith. Last month I dealt deeper into these feelings and my faith. This month I have gotten deeper into the root of some other places.
I continued to read the book slowly and the Lord continued to speak to me through the words of the author. The author tells us that whether or not God has made our dream clear or not, He would make it known in His own time and until then there was a waiting period. Don’t you love that word, wait! Yet during the waiting period is where the pruning and growth comes. It’s during this period where He is truly growing me, exposing my heart, and revealing His. As I dived into prayer and with more questions for God, He revealed fears in my life I knew existed, but had no clue how paralyzing they were. The author spoke about two words that convicted my heart. One was surrender. Surrender is, “to yield to the power or control of another…..to abandon.”1 I was not yielding my fears to God, but allowing them to dictate how much faith I would act on and how much risk I would take with God. For the first time I realized how stationary I was because my fears did not allow me to move. At that moment of revelation, I journaled a list of my fears and seeing it on paper was most alarming yet beneficial. Not only did I have to surrender my fears to Him, but I had to abandon all. I have to abandon all my desires and all my hopes at His feet. I am still in this process of surrendering all to Him. I must abandon my own ideas and wants, so that I can be fully free to fulfill His desires and will for my life.
Honor was the other word that stayed in my thoughts for awhile. The author knew that during the waiting period we have to honor Him in everything. The mundane is what was bogging me down, the everyday routine. I even made a list of that routine and it was good to see that on paper as well. This was the list that I needed to learn to put honor back into. The routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work, driving back, going to bed, and so on and so forth. You get me, right? Somehow I needed to honor our amazing God in all these acts. Of course I already know this and if you asked me about it, I would say, yes, we honor God in everything, from the rising of the sun to its going down, but somewhere in the rising of the sun and going to sleep, I lost purpose and focus. I have to be able to honor God in the ordinary parts of life, so that when He asks me to honor Him in the extraordinary, I can do it with confidence.
I have to be honest, from last month to this month, nothing extraordinary has happened or changed. God didn’t part the clouds and give me a message, yet the work of the Spirit in my heart has been extraordinary. Having to truly surrender my fears has been hard and yet freeing. Surrendering means actually exposing that which I’ve been holding onto and letting it go. But there’s no room for pity because as I’m surrendering I’m honoring God and it’s a process, a cycle if you will, that I must go through every day until it becomes part of my life. Remember the law of Undulation? The ups and downs of our hearts, our desires, and our interests are all part of the process. At the end, we still choose how we will act even if how we feel has failed us. In “The Screwtape Letters”, the uncle demon, Screwtape, explains to his nephew something that not only convicted me, but burned in me to be this kind of human. Remember that the Enemy in this book is God. I leave you with his words:
“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human,
no longer desiring but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will,
looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished,
and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”2
1. “surrender” online dictionary, 2010
http://www.dictionary.com/
2. Lewis, CS The Screwtape Letters. City, State. HarperCollins Publishers. 1942.
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