His ways are not our ways and His way of thinking is not our way of thinking. He is the conception of infinity and beyond. Life’s storms can really beat us up and they take our focus off of Jesus and place it on the adverse event(s). I think back to Peter, as he stepped out of the boat and walked on water to meet Jesus in the midst of the storm. As long as Peter kept his eye on Jesus, he did not sink. The very moment he looked at the waves crashing around him and not at Jesus - he began an to sink and panic set in. The same is true in our own life if we were to step back and really look at it.
Matthew 14:22-33 (New International Version)
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
As life’s storms begin to rage – what do we do? Do we go to God and cry out for help? He has every resource imaginable and is just waiting for us to ask – but do we? No, we simply do not. For whatever reason, we try to solve it on our own or go to a friend. Before we know it we are so far away from God. In the process, we end up reaching out to things which take us further away from Him. Guess what, you, your friends, relationships, drug/alcohol or whatever that thing is for you - has very limited resources but God doesn’t! Also, God never destroys us in the process but the things we go to instead of Him have that ability! I propose this next question: how can we be expected to rise above our circumstances: if we never go to the One who can help us or spend time in His word /praying? Right here is where it all falls apart – we end losing our joy, contentment, happiness, peace, love, testimony and even our faith, etc! Why? We did not ask for help whereby living in defeat – our relationship with God then turns into religion, which is powerless due to not seeking Him. This religion is what the world hates! They don’t see a need for it – and you know what they are RIGHT!!! Without the relationship part with God - religion is in fact useless. Let’s challenge one another in love and compassion and let’s watch as God uses us to reach others for His sake – not religion!
Since I ended that last paragraph with challening one another - there is another point I would like to make:
we, more times than not, fail to be held accountable by our fellow brothers and sisters. It’s unfortunate that we too are afraid of condemnation – even with our own. If we can’t be open with each other how are we to live an effective life in the world for Christ? Who will hold us accountable? Who will walk along side and pray with us about our struggles if we don’t share them? How do we live in victory the way God intended us to live? It is in this process we end up living the Christian life in defeat and wonder why.
To start making changes in your life you first you need to ask God to reveal Himself to you in a new, more powerful way. It’s an amazing thing how our problems often times end up feeling bigger than God truly is. In reality, take the reciprocal of that last statement: God is much bigger than all of our problems. When you are in the midst of some serious termoil the enemy knows how to turn our little feeble human mind around so much so that we can end up blaming God. God is not the maker of problems – humans were given a free will. They have made their own choices since the beginning of time what to do with this free will. The introduction of sin into the world was not God’s intention for His creation but He allowed us to do what we were so bent on doing. As a result, we have consequences for this sin. However, God still loves us even though we constantly go against what we were created for. He demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus to die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins! This type of love is beyond our own understanding – you have to take this kind of love out of the box in order to truly grasp what God has done for us!!!
This got me thinking: Why is it that we have a hard time accepting God for all that He is and trusting in our creator? I have spoken to a quite a few people over the years who have a hard time believing that God actually loves us. Think about it – if you created something that is a living being, wouldn’t you want to have the ability to interact with it, provide for it so it could thrive in the environment, achieve the tasks for which it was created and know who its creator is? If your creation went off and did something different than what it was designed to do – wouldn’t you still care about it? After all, it’s still your creation and you have a vested interest in it. I think the same is true for God and us as humans. He loves us and He has a vested interest in each of us. He spent time creating and planning every aspect of who we are and He even knows how many hairs are on our head! We are His beloved creation, created with a purpose and through Him we can live victoriously rather than in defeat. However, it’s our choice are we going to open up our hands and hearts to trust a God we cannot see? Are we willing to accept that we do not know what is truly best for our lives? Are we willing to take God out of our own little box to realize that He is way beyond our imagination and that He is bigger than all of our problems? Are we willing to truly TRUST HIM?? Is it such a far stretch of the imagination that we were created with a great purpose? We cannot live the Christian life on our own strength and expect to come out victoriously!! If we try on our own to achieve our own purpose we will never reach our greatest potential in life. We have to be willing to trust full heartedly in our creator. Living the Christian life goes against everything the flesh of our bodies craves. My question is how many of these craving are really worthy of giving your life to???? How many are strong enough to take the stand with Jesus' help and TRULY impact this world by being the change; whereby showing that God is truly ALL powerful!!
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