It was strange to not feel inspired. If it were twelve months ago, I’m sure I would’ve been after such an excellent conference, but now having survived surgery of the heart and mind, I could testify that the message was spot on. I could confirm that God sees the end result from the beginning and prepare you for it before the storm hits. I could attest to the fact that He has a plan to mold you into the image of Christ through difficult times if you lean into Him and rely on Him to take you through it. Strangely, this time, I have received a backward-looking confirmation of God’s faithfulness instead of the forward-looking inspiration I anticipated. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
Merely six months prior to the conference, my world was still very shaken up. One night I was in a room full of women feeling numb, not knowing how to move one foot in front of the other, as if I was trapped in a bubble. We were listening to a message on the Shield of Faith by Priscilla Shirer, but I didn’t feel the conviction, encouragement or inspiration I’ve grown accustomed to when listening to her transformational teachings. I knew what it felt like to take courage, move forward in faith and to trust God for whatever lay ahead. Now even the recollection of a memory like that felt foreign to me. Why did God let me go through such terrible difficulty and heartache? More than that, why didn’t He prepare me for it? He did it before, why not this time? Does that mean that I should not have continued in this direction? But now I have.
I suppose at least ten of the twelve spies didn’t feel faith either after they’ve seen the fortified cities and magnificent stature of the Canaanites. All the physical evidence painted a vivid picture of failure in their minds and instilled fear in their hearts. After all they’ve seen in the desert, all the miracles God performed, all their needs that He provided for, they still put their trust in their surroundings instead of God. They didn’t believe that He would deliver on His promise of giving them the land of milk and honey. Only Joshua and Caleb believed that God would be faithful. They saw the same things the other spies saw but was convicted to act differently. Moved by reliance on a faithful God, they implored the people to act in faith and take hold of the inheritance God promised them, a land flowing with milk and honey (Num 14:8-9).
Priscilla Shirer’s words drew me out of my bubble: “We can never detect our level of faith by how we feel, only by what we’re willing to do in obedience to God. Faith is a choice to obey God’s voice and to move forward. It is when you act like God is telling you the truth.” That is most definitely what Joshua and Caleb did. Maybe in choosing this journey and to trust God for a good outcome I’ve acted in faith too, even though I’m not feeing it now. I just need to obey and keep walking. I can rest assured that God will provide for me on this path I’ve taken and that He will fulfill what He has promised to me.
And then God reminded me of the promises that He has given me over the past five months: Promises to turn my heartache into beauty (Is 54:10), promises to fight this battle for me (2 Chron 20:15) and bring health and healing (Jer 33:6), promises to bring our dry bones back to life (Ezek 37) and to bring restoration (Joel 2:12), and promises that God would bring us close together in harmony and unity and peace, founded on Jesus Christ (Eph 2:13-14; 20-22).
Priscilla continued to explain: “A little faith is all you need when it is firmly planted in the right Person. If you are struggling to move forward in faith, you do not need bigger faith. You just need to understand how big your God is. The more faithful and strong you believe him to be, the more willing you will be to depend on Him. Your level of faith will always be tied to your perception of God. Faith says less about you and more about what you really believe to be true about God.”
We live in a physical world that we get to experience with all our senses, but in the beginning, there was nothing to see, hear, taste, smell or touch and out of nothingness, with invisible words, God spoke this world into being and it obeyed. Just because we can’t always sense things physically, it doesn’t mean it isn’t real. We walk by faith not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). We walk with assurance of the things we hope for even though we can’t see it yet. We walk with conviction, a firm belief that what God says to be true, is true. We walk like Abram, not knowing exactly where he was going. We walk like Sarah, believing and trusting God for the impossible, because she considered God to be reliable. We walk like Moses through the desert and like Josua and Caleb into the Promised Land (Heb 11). We walk, we act, we DO something in faith to experience God, because He Who has promised, is faithful (Heb 10:23).
God really has gone before me and prepared me for the battle I was going to face. He gave me five months of promises and today I can look back and see all the ones He has fulfilled already and what He is still busy doing. I know for sure that the Lord my God, is God; He is the faithful God, and He is keeping His covenant of love to me (Deut 7:9). God loves me with an everlasting love, just like He loves you, therefore with loving-kindness He is drawing us near to Him and continues His faithfulness to us (Jer 31:3). Today, He is inviting you and me to follow His lead and take the first step in faith, to trust that He will be faithful.
