I know that many of us have been through a lot this year. We have endured things that we never thought would happen to us. Death, sickness, unemployment, ice storms come at us and seem at times to not stop.
I am, like many of you, a person of faith. Faith in God, faith in Jesus Christ as my saviour, faith in God's Word. So when I go to God's word I read verses that promise deliverance from life's challenges. Challenge: that's a Christian word for troubles, problems and the miserable things that happen in life. Somehow we think if we use a word that seems milder than the event that we are attempting to survive it will be less difficult. I don't know, maybe it does work like that. But I find that is not always the case.
Faith is how you get through the rough moments in life. Faith in God because it is this faith that is based on the unmovable, unchangeable, all powerful standard. Faith in man will fail, faith in money will fail, faith in the USA will fail. Only faith in God can bring victory in the face of defeat. The face of defeat looks different at times. Sometimes it looks like diseases or unemployment or a car wreak or even damage to your property or home from an ice storm. Yes, defeat can look very different but the face of victory is always the same: GOD, the Almighty. He never changes.
Heb 13:8 NASB Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Les Brown, motivational speaker, once said, "Within you lies the power to seize the hour and live your dreams. Faith is the oil that takes the friction out of living. Faith will enable you to turn liabilities into assets and stumbling blocks into stepping stones. When you begin to have faith, your load will get heavy but your knees won't buckle, you'll get knocked down but you won't get knocked out. You've got to have faith if you are going to make it in life. You must believe in yourself and in a power greater than yourself, and do your best and don't worry about the rest. You must maintain faith and work as if everything depended on you and pray as if everything depended on God."
Great advice. God says this. Jer 29:11 NKJV For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Isa 55:8-12 NKJV "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. (9) "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. (10) "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, (11) So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (12) "For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
As the commander of the space ship in one of my favorite movies, Galaxy Quest, would always say, Never give up, Never Surrender.
No comments:
Post a Comment