Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Several things jumped out at me this morning as I read this verse.
First was the word “NOW”. Now is a word that separates a timeline in our lives. It is today. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. In order to grasp the full meaning of faith, you have to realize that it starts today….right now! You make a choice to have faith more than once a day. It doesn’t just happen. It is a choice to be made in every situation of your life.
Second was the phrase “not seen”. I always had faith in what I COULD see; what was right in front of me. That’s easy. Or, I would only focus on the picture that I had in my mind about what I wanted to happen or the outcome of the situation. I could see the ending as I wanted it to turn out. Steven Furtick said it best. He said “The opposite of FAITH is SIGHT.” Think about it.
Faith is letting go of what I SEE or what I WANT to happen, and making myself available and vulnerable to what GOD wants to happen, no matter how painful the process is or what the outcome is. It is saying, “Okay God. I have prayed for this to happen for a long long time, and sometimes it seemed so close to happening the way I thought it would. But now it seems so far away. I claimed that I trusted you, but in reality, I didn’t. Now it’s Your turn. I want what you want.”
You see, I always still tried to control the outcome. And I became bitter and mad when I couldn’t. Recently, I let something get to me when I heard that people were talking about me and to me about things that other people were saying about me, whether they were true or not. So, instead of praying about it and letting God handle it, I took matters into my own hands and tried to defend myself. I said things to people and friends that I shouldn’t have. And to those of you who I said things to, please forgive me. I am sorry for that and won’t be doing that again. I may have lost some very dear friendships because of my actions. I should have just kept my mouth shut and let God fight my battles. But, I dropped my guard for a moment. And when I dropped my guard, I dropped my faith.
Lesson learned.
“Father, please forgive me for dropping my faith and teach me to focus on what you want…not on what I want. Because your ways are better than my ways. And your thoughts are higher than my thoughts.”
higley rides again 