I wrote the other day about my little faith. I ask God for Big things in my life because He loves to give to and bless His children. He says that repeatedly in scripture and I take Him at His word. J Even more powerful, is that He shows it!
Who else ever parted the Red Sea down its middle and restrained each side until thousands of people were able to walk across its dry sea floor?
Who else provided constant food in a desert for 40 years or fed a man in hiding through the use of ravens?
Who else not only saved 3 men from burning to death in a furnace made hot enough to instantly kill their captures, but joined them from inside?
Who else raised man, boy and girl from death to life once more? Who raised His only Son—the Savior of all the world?
This is our God! This is who we believe IN! But do we believe God? Do we believe His character to be faithfully unchanged when it comes to us and our own circumstances?
Do we pray believing—or are our prayers riddled with doubt and safe escapes? By that I mean do we end our prayers “safely” by stating “if this be your will, God?”
I prayed that often...sticking that little phrase somewhere in the beginning, middle or end of my prayer. And even if I didn’t verbally speak it—my thoughts thought it. Our need to have deep faith is immediately taken off the hook. Think about it...why would I need to trust God, how could I trust God—really trust Him—if I always believed that no matter what I was praying “He’s going to do what He wants to do, but I sure hope it’s what I want to have happen too!” Why would deep belief be necessary? I'm not talking acceptance with contentment for whatever God decides to do, so I don't want to lose you here.
Some argue that God can and will change His mind, His will, His course of action based upon the prayers of His people. The most obvious proof of that comes straight from the Bible and the prayers of Moses. Several times God “planned” to wipe out His chosen people, the Israelites, because of their unfaithfulness. Moses went to God and pleaded on their behalf whereby God then “changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.” (Ex. 32:14)
But I’m also coming to believe and understand more clearly that something else happens much more often. God’s will is held back by our unbelief!
God “wills” great and wonderful things for His people. He “wills” more than we even wish for ourselves. But His will often times cannot come about because of our lack of faith.
God has much He wants to give, do, have happen in my life. Doubt thwarts a lot of it. He cannot bring me where I don’t believe I can go—but my faith can! This is my part of what some call the human/divine cooperative.
I believe for so little so I receive so very little. My little faith only lifts me up high enough to the banquet table to receive the scraps off the floor, spillage on the chairs and maybe a few morsels hugging the edge of the table.
I cannot sit at a seat feasting at a table I don’t believe exists!
Do I believe in the banquet table? If I did I would constantly be walking in victory—not defeat. With hopeful, grateful expectancy...not mournful, pitiful “feel sorry for me and my circumstance” gloom! There is no life in that! There is no joy! That is not God’s will for my life!
God could not reward the Israelites with the Promised Land because they refused to believe it was already theirs for the taking. It was God’s will that they enter the land immediately. They didn’t believe—so their faith could not lift them up out of bondage into freedom. They left the bondage of Egypt
So much is missed out by God’s people because we do not believe He is God and He is able and that He wants to move in our lives. God is not inactive—but very, very active in the lives of His people.
But there is only so much He will do without me believing and obeying alongside Him in His work. I have to work out my salvation, work out my faith by believing past what I can see, comprehend or make sense of.
God can do whatever He wants! And He wants to be believed in!
So how deep is my belief?
***This is SUCH an incredible picture! It is a computer generated look of what the view would have been from above as God parted the waters of the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites. What an awesome visual of the trustworthiness of our GREAT and POWERFUL God!!!
