It's great when your faith is strong and things are moving right along. God and you are together knocking down the barriers that arise. You are using your understanding of Scripture along with clear direction from the Holy Spirit to pray and to stand and to push ahead. But what about those times when you simply can't muster the specific faith for a particular issue or situation? God has an answer for that.
First, let me say that the broader topic - what faith is and how it operates - would require many more words than I feel I'm supposed to tackle in this post. Here, I'm going to take a simple and straight-forward approach to working though a common issue for believers, those who have already taken up saving faith. To reiterate: this post is not talking about the basic faith that Jesus died for your sins; I'm assuming here that you already have that, even though it may need to be strengthened and deepened.
There is a good bit of misleading teaching about faith, some from pulpits and some from well-known TV preachers, that implies that I can force God to act if my faith is strong enough and pure enough. My response? Faith has never been and never will be something by which a Believer can manipulate God, forcing Him to do something He wouldn't otherwise do. For faith to work, it must line up with what's already on His heart. That means I should know what the Bible tells me about His heart, what He wants, and how He does things. It also helps a great deal to experience Him and His ways in my life; further, we should always seek to hear Him speaking to our hearts.
The wrong view of faith puts the burden on me. Is my faith strong enough to push God to heal my child, fix my financial problems, save my job, rescue my marriage? We can come up with all kinds of scenarios in which we want God's intervention and quite literally want to tell Him what to do about them. The wrong view of faith implies that I should be able to force Him to do it my way, in my time.
Let me be clear: God doesn't have any problem at all with me asking Him to do specific things (in fact, He likes it when I do), but the wrong view of faith makes it incumbent upon ME to believe single-mindedly - and with total purity - for what I'm asking to happen. It puts the responsibility on me and my faith. If the desired result doesn't happen, then I can only conclude that something must be wrong with me and my faith, right? NO! That's wrong, wrong, wrong! I will never, ever manipulate God or earn anything from God or put Him in position to owe me something because I have such strong faith or am such a good Christian. No! All He does for me, in me, through me, and around me, is by pure grace. Always. Every time. Neither you nor I EVER earn anything from God, thereby putting Him in debt to us. He is NEVER in debt to any person. I can never force His hand.
Here's how I see the path that faith really takes in difficult situations. Sometimes my faith absolutely soars in the midst of difficulty. But, if my faith won't fly when things are bad, it doesn't at all mean that God won't or can't move. I've been in some of those hard places. In the midst of them, it was as though He said to me, "You're not able to apply specific faith in this situation, are you? Well, maybe your faith can't fly right now, but can you trust Me?"
How simple! Yes, of course I can trust Him! Trusting Him takes the focus off of my sometimes shaky faith and puts the focus back on His unlimited capabilities, His wonderful desires, His incredible heart of love, His unstoppable ability to figure things out, and His eternal plans for good. Trusting Him puts me in a place of surrendering to His answer, whatever it may be.
Notice carefully in the Bible, Old Testament and New, how so many passages give trust a high place of honor. Proverbs 3:5-6 is a sort of anchor passage for this thought, but there are many, many more:
With trust, I can still ask for a specific result but I'm anticipating that God will work out what He wants the way He wants it, whatever that may entail. I choose to trust His heart in this situation!
To my mind, it's kind of like the difference between Expectation and Expectancy.
Summing this post up, when you may not have specific faith for a particular situation, remember this: it's never wrong to trust God. In fact, in every situation, it's always right to trust God. His heart and desires for you are incredible and always fit perfectly in the context of His big picture.
I hope you will take the time to send me your Comments on this topic. This post on faith and trust didn't turn out as straightforward and simple as I'd hoped. If you see it differently or if my explanation isn't clear or doesn't work for you, let me know.
Bless you!
The following passages speak to the issue of God never being in our debt.
First, let me say that the broader topic - what faith is and how it operates - would require many more words than I feel I'm supposed to tackle in this post. Here, I'm going to take a simple and straight-forward approach to working though a common issue for believers, those who have already taken up saving faith. To reiterate: this post is not talking about the basic faith that Jesus died for your sins; I'm assuming here that you already have that, even though it may need to be strengthened and deepened.
There is a good bit of misleading teaching about faith, some from pulpits and some from well-known TV preachers, that implies that I can force God to act if my faith is strong enough and pure enough. My response? Faith has never been and never will be something by which a Believer can manipulate God, forcing Him to do something He wouldn't otherwise do. For faith to work, it must line up with what's already on His heart. That means I should know what the Bible tells me about His heart, what He wants, and how He does things. It also helps a great deal to experience Him and His ways in my life; further, we should always seek to hear Him speaking to our hearts.
The wrong view of faith puts the burden on me. Is my faith strong enough to push God to heal my child, fix my financial problems, save my job, rescue my marriage? We can come up with all kinds of scenarios in which we want God's intervention and quite literally want to tell Him what to do about them. The wrong view of faith implies that I should be able to force Him to do it my way, in my time.
Let me be clear: God doesn't have any problem at all with me asking Him to do specific things (in fact, He likes it when I do), but the wrong view of faith makes it incumbent upon ME to believe single-mindedly - and with total purity - for what I'm asking to happen. It puts the responsibility on me and my faith. If the desired result doesn't happen, then I can only conclude that something must be wrong with me and my faith, right? NO! That's wrong, wrong, wrong! I will never, ever manipulate God or earn anything from God or put Him in position to owe me something because I have such strong faith or am such a good Christian. No! All He does for me, in me, through me, and around me, is by pure grace. Always. Every time. Neither you nor I EVER earn anything from God, thereby putting Him in debt to us. He is NEVER in debt to any person. I can never force His hand.
Here's how I see the path that faith really takes in difficult situations. Sometimes my faith absolutely soars in the midst of difficulty. But, if my faith won't fly when things are bad, it doesn't at all mean that God won't or can't move. I've been in some of those hard places. In the midst of them, it was as though He said to me, "You're not able to apply specific faith in this situation, are you? Well, maybe your faith can't fly right now, but can you trust Me?"
How simple! Yes, of course I can trust Him! Trusting Him takes the focus off of my sometimes shaky faith and puts the focus back on His unlimited capabilities, His wonderful desires, His incredible heart of love, His unstoppable ability to figure things out, and His eternal plans for good. Trusting Him puts me in a place of surrendering to His answer, whatever it may be.
Notice carefully in the Bible, Old Testament and New, how so many passages give trust a high place of honor. Proverbs 3:5-6 is a sort of anchor passage for this thought, but there are many, many more:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.Having specific faith in a situation means I'm believing God wants me to have that specific answer. That may be precisely what the Holy Spirit is guiding me to do in that circumstance. But that's not the situation I'm talking about here. Because things aren't always so clear, trust is more generalized than that.
With trust, I can still ask for a specific result but I'm anticipating that God will work out what He wants the way He wants it, whatever that may entail. I choose to trust His heart in this situation!
To my mind, it's kind of like the difference between Expectation and Expectancy.
- Expectation is "a belief that something should happen in a particular way." Faith, as we're talking about it here, has a strong element of expectation in it.
- Expectancy is "a sense that something good or exciting is going to happen." Trust has a lot of expectancy in it.
Summing this post up, when you may not have specific faith for a particular situation, remember this: it's never wrong to trust God. In fact, in every situation, it's always right to trust God. His heart and desires for you are incredible and always fit perfectly in the context of His big picture.
I hope you will take the time to send me your Comments on this topic. This post on faith and trust didn't turn out as straightforward and simple as I'd hoped. If you see it differently or if my explanation isn't clear or doesn't work for you, let me know.
Bless you!
The following passages speak to the issue of God never being in our debt.
Rom 4:4-5 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness...
Job 41:11 (ESV) Who has first given to Me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment