Hold on to your faith
1Co 16:13 ΒΆ Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.
2Th 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
This message has been going over and over in my head the last few days.
I’ve been thinking that 2011 hasn’t been a good year so for many of us, and we are only in the month of May.
January 18th my precious wife left me behind and she went on to be with the Lord.
Some of you have lost your homes due to the flood.
Some of you worked feverously trying to keep your houses out of the floodwaters.
Recently we lost from our presence a dear old saint of God who went on to be with the Lord.
Besides all of this on our local level, we have heard of tornados, storms, and floods that have ravaged other areas of the country.
And sometimes, we wonder where God is in the midst of all this.
Does He really know what we are going through?
Does He even care that we are hurting?
And sometimes we may even question our faith and have thoughts about whether there really is a God!
If you will be patient with me a moment, I remember very clearly the morning Kathy drew her last breath.
I recall the shock I felt, even though I thought I was prepared.
I remember leaning over her lifeless body and weeping my heart out.
In the days that followed I began to question God.
God why did you not answer my prayer? Why did you not heal her.
Someone mistakenly said, “Oh but God did heal her!”
Who which I reply, no He is not heal her. He took her from me!
I needed her. I loved her. I adored her.
I buried her body in a grave in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Cabot, Arkansas. I can take you to the spot. She wasn’t healed!!
In the following days after the funeral, I questioned God almost on a daily basis.
Why? Why? I began to have doubtful thoughts about my faith.
I would think of scriptures concerning healing, and wonder if that was really true. I would think about the verse where God is no respecter of persons. “But God I asked you to heal Kathy over and over again, and my prayer was not answered.”
Night after night I laid in my bed and begged God to take me right then and there. I would say, “Let me die! I don’t want to live! And then when I would wake up the next morning, I would again be disappointed that I did not die.
And then wonder again, There must not be a God. If there is a God why don’t He take me. Why don’t He allow me to be with my wife in heaven, if there really is a heaven?
You see, Satan was trying to destroy my faith!
He was taking the circumstances that surrounded me, catching me in the weakest point of my life, and pointing to my unanswered prayers and saying, Where is your faith now?
Where is your God now? You have preached healing for years. You have stood upon the Bible for years.
Now God has let you down!!!
And you know what? I started believing it!!
Many of you do not understand what I am talking about.
Some of you may think I must be a weak, puny Christian.
Some may even think I have backslidden.
But until you walk in my shoes, until you walk in the shoes of those who are hurting, you cannot comprehend nor can you understand.
I think of Job a lot, especially lately. He was a man of integrity and walked upright before God.
Yet when he lost everything He had, including his own children, he was so distraught he cursed the day he was born.
Through it all, he said thou God slay me yet will I trust Him.
Job says, “I don’t know, I don’t understand, I can’t figure this out, I cannot comprehend why this is happening to me.”
But I will trust Him! I will trust Him! I will trust Him!
A few days ago some of our people here in this church were facing circumstances beyond their control.
Some of us thought we had it in control, thought we had it covered, thought everything would be okay, but to our dismay we did not have control of the forces of nature.
Some of you lost that which was dear to you. You worked hard for that home, you had a comfortable home, you saved and bought beautiful things for your homes, but we found that we could only do so much.
Did God fail you? Did He let you down? And listen, its alright to think and wonder if He did. Because that is human nature.
But we do not dwell on those human thoughts. We don’t allow the devil to take advantage of our loss and tell us God has failed us.
No I don’t understand why God didn’t heal Kathy.
I don’t understand why I must go through life without her, and possibly live the rest of my life in loneliness.
I don’t understand why God allowed the rains to come and flood homes and destroy the property of Christians.
I don’t understand why a child would suffer with cancer, or die in a car accident.
I don’t understand why some Christians live the best they know how and then have to suffer a divorce, or lose a child, or lose their job, or lose their home.
Job didn’t understand it either, but he said “I will trust Him.”
We all live in a real world where bad things happen to good people.
It is part of life. And we must learn to submit to God and His will and trust that He, and only He knows what is best.
We must not lose our faith. We must hold on to our faith.
That’s all we have church!! All this world is sinking sand, but on this solid rock I’ll stand.”
There is more to faith than seeing mountains moved and miracles performed.
There is more to faith than believing God for “things.”
Faith is also standing true to God when everything is going wrong.
Faith is trusting God even when the storms are raging.
Faith is holding on when our natural inclination is to turn loose.
Faith is believing God’s Word in spite of the circumstances
Faith is saying, “God I don’t understand, but I am going to trust you anyhow.”
“I cannot understand! It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“God I even wonder if you are there!”
“Do you even care?”
This must be what those disciples thought when they were in the midst of the biggest storm they had possibly seen.
“Where is Jesus?” “We are about to sink!”
But listen my friend, Standing somewhere in the shadows you’ll find Jesus, He’s the only one who cares and understands.”
Oh this is such a simple message, but it is powerful!
Hold on to your faith!! Hold on to your faith!!!!
So, what do you do when you can't find the words to explain to those around you that the circumstance, the situation, the grip of the condition is so tight you can hardly get enough air into your lungs to keep breathing?
What do you do when you can't stop the tears and every waking moment reminds you of the pain? What do you do when you can't say a word and you're so tired of the battle that all you want to do is lie down and give up? What do you do when the systems of this world fail you?
I have come to realize that my answer to the call or agreeing with my purpose has not come without a price.
Neither does yours. I realize I could not emphatically encourage you or sincerely empathize with you if I, myself, did not experience life's ups and downs.
In my ministry over the years I have seen more defeat than I have victories. Kathy and I have shed a lot of tears.
But we have also soared in the midst of the storms.
I could not teach you how to soar in the storm unless I knew how to soar in the storm. I could not teach you how to turn adversities into victories unless I face adversity and turn it into victory.
I could not teach abundant living, if I did not know and understand abundant living-in spite of illusions in the conscious mind.
I wish today I could hand you a quick fix, honestly. I wish today I could make all the wrongs that life has brought you, right. I wish I could take away all of your pain, immediately.
I wish I could turn your cards of life into a royal straight flush. I can't.
But, this is what I can do. I can encourage you to hold on. I can tell you and show you how to not give up and not give in.
I can lead you toward love, light and healing. And, if you choose such, you can and will walk into abundant living-in this life, not just the next.
You will experience love, justice and peace in this world not just the next. You will experience JOY and HAPPINESS not just later, but now. Yes, in this life!
This leaves me with still so many unanswered questions and I just can’t do anything else but hold on to my faith, knowing my sense of reality is so limited by what I see, hear, feel or taste compared to Gods reality; unlimited by time nor space and then I feel small….. very, very small.
In the end of the day it all comes down to two options; either God doesn’t exist and we all just are subject of circumstances. The other option is that we as humans by far will never be able to comprehend the reasoning of God within His perspective.
I’ll stick to the last one and hold on to His word, to His unfailing, unconditional and everlasting love and to what I know He has done for me in the past, trusting and hoping some day we will meet and things will be revealed to me.
