Real Faith for Real Life

God never ceases to amaze me.  Unfortunately, neither does the enemy.  Sometimes it is hard to figure out if the difficult things we face in life are the result of the enemy’s work to sidetrack us or God’s work to refine us. 

A week ago, I had just finished speaking at a women’s retreat on the topic of “Real Faith for Real Life”.  I had shared some of my past stories in light of the truth from God’s Word and how God had faithfully guided me through difficult times for my growth and his glory.  I had challenged my listeners to choose to trust God in everyday, practical ways as life happens.  After hearing how God was using his words through me in the lives of those in attendance, it would have been easy to feel accomplished and that I had progressed beyond my past failures and moved on to new ways of growing spiritually.  I don’t remember feeling that way, but either God or the enemy decided to see if I was still going to model truth in the face of adversity.  A new and unexpected life challenge had presented itself in full force.

I’d like to say that I felt no stress and never fought the circumstances for a moment; but, alas, I am human, and there have been moments of unrest in the past week – even though what I’ve been facing is something that I’ve faced before.  I guess it’s safe to say that I don’t like it when parts of my life are out of my control!  But in this past week, I have been reminded of some of the words I spoke to others and some of the passages of Scripture God gave me to share at the retreat.

First of all, God is sovereign.  Nothing that happens to us is a surprise to him, and everything is designed by him to help us become more like his Son (Romans 8:28-29).  I can rest in his sovereignty and trust him because he knew and planned both my current struggle as well as the timing.  And everything is about him, not about me (Romans 11:36).  Responding the right way to life’s struggles begins with a good grasp on this truth.

In the Old Testament, Job was an incredible example for us in responding to God’s sovereignty.  When all of his livestock, servants, and even his children were taken from him on the same day, his response was to fall down on the ground to worship God (Job 1:20-21).  He recognized that nothing that we experience on earth changes who God is and his worthiness to be praised.

The next thing I remembered from my speaking was that God is always faithful.  This is obviously not news, especially to someone who has had a lot of ups and downs in life; but it is always something that we need to be reminded of and continue to focus on.  Focusing on God’s faithfulness instead of our circumstances is the best way to keep the enemy from winning a battle when we are walking through a valley.  Today when I turned my calendar to a new month, the verse was Psalm 31:23: “The Lord preserves the faithful.”  Probably not a coincidence!

Because faith is an ongoing relationship with God and not a one-time event, we will never reach a point where we have “arrived”.  Life’s challenges will always have the potential to unnerve us and provide the opportunity for us to trust God more or in a new way.  That’s just how faith works – it always carries with it an element of the unknown.  But what is always unchanging is God’s character and his love for us.  He can be counted on to always work in every situation to make us more Christlike and to glorify himself – the only One worthy of all praise.  I’m so thankful that I can rest in who he is and lay life’s challenges at Jesus’ feet before God’s throne.