Here is my devotion I shared with the teacher's this morning at school.
The Journey of Faith
This devotion was actually a
long process.
The Lord did not give it to
me as easily as He has others. I think He was continuing to test my
faith as I was learning about it and looking back on my journey.
This summer I did the Beth
Moore Bible study called Believing God. I will be sharing
excerpts from that study with you today. It was one that definitely
took me on a journey!
I had always known I had
saving faith, but I didn't always have the faith of constantly
believing God.
Being a Type A control
person I always thought I knew the best way to handle a situation...
and that is to handle it myself. Thankfully with the Lord's gentle
pushing and awakening in my life I can see that I was doing that
through fear and not through faith.
Beth Moore stated this in
the Bible Study: “Much of the body of Christ is paralyzed by
unbelief. Our unbelief has likely ushered us into a frustrating,
disabling cycle: we believe little, so we see little, so we continue
to believe little and see little.”
Here is what I wrote during
my Godstop for that day: “I am continuing to learn and see that
faith requires a great deal of faith! :) Sometimes I feel that
giving everything to God in faith and taking my hands off the wheel
is giving me more uncertainty in ME. For someone who has tried to
“take charge” most of her life, this causes me to re-think who I
am. It also causes me to think of how much God really wants ME to do
on my own with the abilities He has given me, and how much He wants
me to let go.”
Faith is the action of
letting go and constantly believing God.
Living by faith means living
it totally. Sight would mean to put on a good show of faith, but
deep inside you actually lack it.
Here is another Godstop
moment I wrote: “We walk by faith, not by sight” from
yesterday's lesson really came alive to me. Walking by faith means
living it daily. When I say living it, I mean LIVING it. When we
walk by sight we are as someone who has put on a costume and we want
others to see our “faith”, but inside we are still the person
struggling to have faith. It reminds me a bit of the Pharisees and
how they showed an outward appearance, but the heart showed
otherwise.”
I have been there.
One of the personal stories of faith
that Beth Moore shared in the Bible study was about George Müller.
His story made a huge impact on my life in the way I think of
praying to God. Here is an excerpt of his life:
“In the course of his life George
Müller asked much
of God but never to squander money on his own lusts. He was certain
that God had called him to serve his generation, first through the
Scriptural Knowledge Institution and then through the orphanages for
which he is best known. The
expenses were endless, but George Müller knew that all the resources
of heaven and earth belong to God alone. This is the part of his
story I find most fascinating: Müller viewed prayer as a withdrawal
from God's heavenly bank account into kingdom work on earth. 'George
had such confidence and trust in the Lord that he counted his
requests as good as accomplished when he prayed. He often thanked
God for the sum as though already in hand.'”
The
Lord has reminded me much of this Scripture in the past few weeks:
Matthew
6:25-34
25 Therefore I say unto
you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air:
for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought
can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for
raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the
grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom
of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added
unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for
the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
He promises to take care of
our needs.
He promises to never leaves
us.
He promises to never
forsakes us.
He promises to give us
grace.
He promises to give
salvation.
During the course of the
Bible study I have had to read Romans Chapter 4 many times. It has
come alive to me and 2 verses in particular have stood out:
Romans 4:20-21
20 He (Abraham) staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
21 And being fully persuaded that,
what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
Abraham didn't have what we
have in the Scriptures, but He still had faith in God and did not
stagger at God's promises.
These are verses I have
reminded myself of many times this summer and began to claim them as
my own. I pray they will be a blessing and reminder to you as well
of what true faith in God – constantly believing God – means.
When I asked the Lord to
help me come up with a photograph for these verses, I began to ask
Him HOW would I photograph FAITH?
He immediately gave me an
answer to this question. I had recently gone outside and
photographed some mockingbird babies that Steve had discovered when
he was trimming the bushes. They were so sweet. I noticed that
every time I moved the branches to get in for a closer shot of them,
their mouths opened ready to be filled with the nourishment from
their parents.
It brought to my mind how
that is what FAITH really is... having our mouths wide open expecting
great things from God – no matter how difficult the wait. Those
birds never got fed by me, but they also never gave up opening their
mouths waiting for what their parents had for them.
Are you ready to “open
your mouth” to God and allow Him to fill you with His nourishment
for your life?
Let's begin this school year
with a stronger faith that what He has promised, He WILL PERFORM.
