Skip to main content

Iffy Faith

How's your faith?  I'm willing to bet that if most of us are truly honest, our faith is often times "iffy" at best.  We make statements like:
-  God, if you'll give me a child, I promise I'll dedicate him/her to you.
-  God, if you give me good job or a raise, I'll be more generous with my giving.
-  God, if you give me a prominent position, I'll talk about you more with people.

And while we've all probably made "deals" like these with God before, they are not how our faith should operate.  God listens, but He doesn't negotiate.  I believe that He hears our prayers and that He is compassionate to our concerns and our hearts, but I also know that ultimately His will will be done.


Rather than having if, or iffy, faith, perhaps we should focus on having EVEN IF faith:
-  Will you trust God EVEN IF your child becomes deathly ill, develops some severe condition, or worse dies?  Will you still trust His purposes for that child in your life?
-  Will you trust God EVEN IF you get downsized or laid off?  Will you trust that He has something better in store for you?
-  Will you trust God EVEN IF your position is stripped away or your reputation defamed?  Will you trust His plan for your life then?


Lord, I pray that you will continue to grow my faith, to strengthen my faith, to help me to from the often iffy faith that I have now to the point that I will have "even if" faith and always be willing to trust you.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2020 is Hindsight...Finally!

Wow, what a year! 2020 could literally be an entire decade, maybe more, of history, change, and lessons rolled up into these twelve months. While many aspects of 2020 were kind of sucky and we would like to forget them, it will certainly be a year to remember. And it will be enlightening when this year is looked back on in 10, 25, or 50 years to be discussed. I wonder if we'll seem like geniuses or idiots? Probably both to some extent! While there is so much that I could consider and analyze about this year, I'll try to break some of it down into four dimensions - Physical, Spiritual, Mental, and Social/Emotional. These are events and happenings from my world and perspective and I'm trying to be open in sharing and would love to hear from others on events you found most transforming. Physical When COVID cause gyms to close, that messed me up. Our town and state were late to be hit with severe cases and therefore later than many across the country to close up shop. I'm n...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Pray - The Object of Our Prayer

In our College & Career Sunday school class this week, we started a series titled, "How to Pray."  I plan to try to and share the lessons each week in case anyone wants to follow along with us here...or you can come join us Sunday mornings at Tabernacle at 10 AM in room 218. Any good speaker, teacher, or presenter knows that the #1 rule of public speaking is to know your audience.  You don't want to prepare a discussion about retirement for preschoolers and a presentation themed with Disney princesses most likely wouldn't spark the interest of a group of businessmen.  In order for someone to prepare a dynamic and engaging presentation, they must know their audience, who they're preparing to talk to. The same is true in our prayer life.  The Point of this week's study is: "A right view of God fuels how we pray."  The conversations we engage in with our friends about are often focused on topics that interest them: their favorite team, favorite ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons in Prayer - 1 Timothy 2:1-8 - Our Attitudes

I'm still working through this same passage on prayer from 1 Timothy and I won't copy all the verses but you can read from the beginning to have a better understanding of the full passage. "...That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.  This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior." - 1 Timothy 2:2b-3 Paul's plea for Timothy here is for the church to live peaceful and quiet lives.  So how do we do that?  Well the thought of peacefulness is a life that is free from internal disturbances or distractions.  We must first be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with others.  A quiet life is one that flows from being peaceful and is a life free from external disturbances and distractions.  Now this does not mean that the church is to just go along with whatever the world says in order to be peaceful.  We are not to waver on biblical truth period.  You won't find true Christian...
Post a Comment
Read more