The Lord continues to fine tune my soul during these days of preparation. Today the focus of His conviction was my lack of faith. This one issue has led to many other things. If I truly lived, prayed, served, and waited in faith I would live in peace. I would not have the extreme mood swings. I would not be daunted by delays in answer to prayer. If I had more faith I could take everything in stride. I would not live in frustration. I would have unshakable confidence in God.
These days have been rich but they have not been easy. While I have immensely enjoyed my times with the Lord His searching gaze has turned up sin over and over in my life. Today the major sin is my lack of trust in Him at all times. It is easier to doubt than to believe. It is easier to quit than to finish. It is easier to give in than to persist. There are many things the Lord has put in my heart to believe Him for. Most people would think I had lost my mind if I shared even a few of those things. Regardless I am called to stay the course in prayer. There are things God wills to exist and to happen and only through persistent and faith based praying will I ever see those things come to pass.
During these days the Lord has been working in my heart like a skilled surgeon. He is removing the cancer of sin in areas I have long overlooked. I have considered myself to be a man of faith for many years. I can recount a long list of faith steps. The truth is I am prone to doubt just like the next person when God's answer to my prayers have been long in coming. I wrote about this yesterday. I have preached on faith, written extensively on faith and yet in recent days I have doubted God on many fronts. I have not continued to believe when the odds were stacked against me.
Today the Lord convicts me that the root problem in my life is lack of faith. If I really had confidence in God I would not be shaken no matter what life throws at me. So I have brought that one issue to the Lord and repented. I have had to change my thinking and my ways. There are no excuses. Unbelief is sin and I have sinned greatly. I have asked the Lord to heal my soul at the basic level of trusting Him.
There is a song written and sung by Dennis Jernigan that challenges me. The chorus goes like this, "I will trust you in the darkness. I will trust you in life's harshness. I will trust you Lord to guard over my heart. I will trust you and keep singing. I will trust you dearly clinging. I will trust you and keep bringing you my heart. In quietness and trust You will be my strength. Father I trust you with my heart."
God is faithful no matter how dark the night or the day you and I are currently living. God is faithful no matter how harsh life becomes. So I have to trust God with my heart, my family, my ministry, and my dreams. No matter how long I have to wait, no matter how large the mountains that stand in the way between where I am and where God wants me to be, I have to trust Him. Not to trust Him is sin!
I have lived in the sin of anxiety. I have lived outside of God's peace. I have prayed but I have not rested. I have prayed but often I have not persisted. I have given up on many things when the answers did not come as soon as I thought they would.
This is a major sin. Unbelief is sin! I find myself praying the same prayer as the father with the demon possessed son, "Lord help my unbelief!" I do not want to live in doubt. My family looks to me to be a man of faith. The name of our church is Faith Community Church for crying out loud. I have seen other churches use the name Faith before and have often noted how small they were.
Yesterday, while in Wichita Falls, TX, I saw a huge church with the name Faith in it and I commented to Brenda that church reflected the greatness of God. How can I pastor and write effectively if I entertain doubts periodically. God is not just trustworthy and reliable on some days. He is faithful every day and therefore I have no reason to doubt Him. Faith Community Church should reflect the greatness and the power of God to a watching world.
This is so frustrating to me. I recall a prayer I said many years ago. I asked God to do whatever He needed to do in me so my faith would keep growing. The challenges never end. At this very second I am trusting God to grow a new church, send a true revival to Faith Community and Paradise, to provide $130,000 to pay off a hospital in Honduras, publish and distribute my books all over the world, sell a house in Seminole, buy a house in Paradise, live debt free, and save several people I am burdened for. These things are just a start. You would not believe the rest.
There is no room in my life to have small faith or live in doubt. God's word is filled with promises I have often claimed. God has also shown me I have doubted these promises more than I have realized. For me to continue this glorious pursuit I must be healed and restored at the level of basic trust. Many disappointments and delays have eroded that child-like faith I once held.
Today I go back to the word of God to be refreshed and renewed. "Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray, ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted to you." [Mark 11:23-24] "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen." [Heb 11:1] "Without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." [Heb 11:6]
When I doubt I am in essence saying with my life, "Lord, I do not believe you and your promises are not true. They are lies. In fact, Lord you are a liar." I would never say such things out loud but when I refuse to trust God in all of life's harshness, disappointments, and trials that is what I am saying with my attitude and actions.
So on the fourth day of this glorious pursuit I am once again brought to a place of repentance. This is not a bad thing. God's conviction and leading me to repentance is a work of grace in my heart. I feel restored and closer to God than I have been in a long while. I have longed to linger in His presence. He has brought to mind many things He wants me to trust Him for. I am in a good place.
Like a person recovering from surgery there is pain but the pain is good because it is leading to healing. There is no way I can ever put into words what these past few days have meant to me as I have lingered with the Lord. They have been painful but they have also brought much needed healing to my sin battered and battle weary soul.
I wonder if any of you reading this have been convicted of living with small faith and doubts. In the same way God brought me to repentance and then restoration and healing, He longs to do the same for you. Why not linger with Him today and repent of not trusting Him. How much good could be done in the church of the living God all over the world if only His people would tenaciously trust Him! That is my resolve on this glorious pursuit.
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