If you follow me on Facebook at all or even reading my last couple of blogs, I think it is pretty evident that God has been a-workin on my faith life. My husband and I have discussed it lots and just how growing up, sure it was easy to talk about how "you just got to have faith, man! God will get you through this if your just obedient with Him!" And while all of that is all well and good and I really do believe that with all of my heart, it is much harder to put that into practice when real struggles actually occur and your faced with real decisions with real possible consequences, I have found.
The hard truth to swallow is, that while God WILL get you through it and He DOES work all things together for our good, it may not be at all how we thought the good was supposed to be. It may take years to "get through it". It may take years to "see the good" or to look back and see what the good even was. It may not have even really been for your good, (besides reaping the heavenly benefits and feeling the joy that comes with obedience) it may have been for the good of His kingdom which is ultimately for your good. Confused yet?
Most people know the story of Jesus walking on water, and then His disciple, Peter, also walking on the water out to meet Him. If you don't know the story, read Matthew 14:22-33 (if you don't have a Bible you can very easily google it).
When I was little, I imagine a toddler to five-ish year old, I learned this story and thought to myself, "hey! I really believe in Jesus and I really believe he can do anything and I can do anything with Him!"
So I decided to give this a try in my bathtub. I would start out by standing on the sides, saying, "I have faith Jesus that I can walk on water", and then taking a step. I knew I couldn't just half do it or that wasn't really faith. And what do you know, I could walk on water!
...
Obviously, that's not what happened. I will let you envision little curly headed Molly taking a plunge into the bathtub for yourself. However, falling on my hiney never made me question God's abilities or He, Himself. In fact, I tried it several times, each time giggling at myself and picturing Jesus laughing too.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, don't be discouraged when a faith filled intention doesn't exactly turn out like you thought it would or thought it should. God has a plan in everything and sometimes living by Faith is not just living out in obedience, but also accepting the outcome, that that wasn't God's intentions for you or for His kingdom.
I remember questioning my own faith. Maybe I really didn't believe that Jesus could do it through me. If I just believed better I probably could've walked on water. In my bathtub.
But the truth is, it just wasn't in God's eternal plan for me to reach the world by walking across my sudsy bathtub water, as cool as I still think it would have been. It's not that he couldn't have done it, or that I didn't have enough faith. It's just that sometimes having a strong faith in God's will for your life, is also having faith that slipping and falling on your hiney was part of His plan all along, when all you wanted to do was walk on the water.
Let me take this moment to reiterate-hello! Being a Christ-follower is really hard ! But, when you do finally see what the good was, and see a little glimpse of God's imaculate plan, it's completely worth it. That's another thing you just have to have faith on!
I hope these posts have been more encouraging, than discouraging. Sometimes it's equally hard to spit out the hard truths of Christianity than to sugar coat things. (On another topic) that's why it's so important to spend daily time with God as well as to refresh yourself by spending time with your church family, and if you don't have one, find one! Tomorrow is a great place to start!
Jesus said, "in this world you WILL have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world!"
-John 16:33
In His hug,
Molly
Love your stories.
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