In the Storm

Recently I went through some difficult circumstances that tested me emotionally and spiritually. I'll admit, it was hard to go through (although compared to the troubles so many other people have, I'm embarrassed to describe it as a "rough time" for me).

Maybe the hardest part about it was realizing that what I thought could be God's plan for me - and what I so desperately wanted it to be - wasn't. And yet I know that God was involved in everything that happened.

I am firmly convinced that God puts people in our lives for specific purposes, and that he likewise places us in others' lives to fulfill specific purposes as well. Sometimes though, it's easy to get caught up in asking the questions of "How" or "Why" and rationalizing in my finite mind why the project is incomplete, instead of accepting the Lord's blueprint.

This morning I got a text message from a particular person and then it hit me, what my purpose had been  in this person's life. I believe that God placed me in this person's life for a specific time, for specific circumstances that this person was going through. That time now has passed. When I realized what that purpose was, and that it was accomplished, the turbulence of my thoughts about the situation calmed into a final, restful peace. What I thought to be an uneasy, abrupt interruption turned out to be the Author signing off on the final page in this certain chapter of my life.

There was a storm in my life, and as the rain came down it was easy for me to focus on the size of the waves and the lightning and the rumbling thunder, even though God was there all along. He had His hand on my shoulder, guiding me. He was holding the lantern so I wouldn't be scared by my own blindness. He was whispering directions into my ear, trying to comfort me and quell the battle inside me.

It's easy to lose sight of this when we're in the middle of the storm and the ship starts to take on water. It can be difficult to hear His voice amid the din of the storm and the racket of our thoughts and the piercing screaming that penetrates and annoys us (before we realize, embarrassingly enough, that the screaming actually is coming from inside of ourselves).

And yet God was there the whole time.

Once the storm was calmed, it was easy for me to see that He was there. Don't get me wrong, at the time I knew that God had a reason for what happened - I just had a hard time accepting it. Like Thomas, I wanted evidence. I wanted to know how this outcome could fulfill my purpose in this person's life, rather than acknowledging - through trust - that in fact it did.

So I'll make a mental note for next time: Trust Him. Sometimes situations are thrown at us that are unavoidable and are tough to experience. But if we keep our eyes locked on Christ, if we keep our ears tuned to the sound of His voice, if we hold on tightly to His hand as he leads us, then we will be able to trust Him fully, as if there were no storm at all.

"See? I've got you," He says to us. "And I've had you all along."

Mustard Seed Manifesto

And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said,

"Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly.

For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.

And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him."

And Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? 

How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me."

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"

He said to them, "Because of your little faith.

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

- Matthew 17:14-20 (ESV)

If you're anything like me, you're amazed at the faith the disciples had throughout many of the stories told in the Gospels.

They were willing to drop everything to follow a man they did not even know. They were willing - heck, excited - to face persecution for Jesus. They were willing to get out of a boat on a stormy night and walk to Jesus.

But in Matthew, we read that Jesus' disciples are having trouble casting out a demon. They can't do it. And they can't figure out why they can't do it. So they ask Jesus.

After all, He's the Son of God - surely He knows why they're inept. Right? Right.

That's when he drops something big on them:

"Because of your little faith," he says. "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."

Oh, and by the way, if you do that, he says: "nothing will be impossible for you."

So you're trying to tell me that the faith of the Twelve is not even the size of a teensy tiny mustard seed?

Truth is, the disciples were just regular people like you and me, with the Holy Spirit working and moving inside of them. And if you and I are Christians, if we truly have given our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ as our Savior, then we have the Holy Spirit in us as well. So are we fully capable of this faith? Yes.

Then why don't we have it?

It comes down to human nature. We're flawed. We sin. Sometimes we find it hard to trust our entire being to something - well, Someone - we can't see.

Personally, I want to control everything. I like to be in charge. If I've got something on my watch, then nothing bad will happen. Or so I think. So with my fists tightly clenched, I hold onto my struggles and endeavors rather than give them up to God.

When we do these things, we essentially tell God that He is smaller than our problems, or that we are bigger than He is and can manage things better than He can. (Which, by the way, is totally false.)

So what can we do?

Read the Bible. Pray. And open our ears and eyes to what God is trying to tell us. He's bigger than our largest fears, our largest problems, our largest anxieties. And yet he loves us enough to care about all of them.

So go on this journey with me. Hopefully it will help remind both of us that God is faithful and that we no longer should hesitate, but instead totally depend, rely, lean, on Him.

Because when our faith grows, even to something as small as a mustard seed, that's when we will see God truly work and move in our lives - in ways bigger than our finite human brains ever could have imagined.

The Mustard Seed Manifesto:

1. God is great. He can and will do great things.
2. God fulfills His promises. He has a history of coming through, and He won't let you down.
3. We have not because we ask not. If we ask in faith, He will move in faith.
4. Because God's love knows no bounds, what He can and will do for us likewise is limitless.
5. It is our duty as Christians to tell others how God has proved faithful in our lives.

A Battle-Tested Faith

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

- Exodus 14:14, NIV

Exodus 14:14 is my favorite Bible verse. 

It captures perfectly how often we humans can get in the way. When we step aside, God can clean up any mess we might make.

Here's the context: the words in this verse are spoken by Moses to the people of Israel, just moments before they cross the Red Sea. As the Israelites are making their escape, the Egyptians pursue them. And the people are afraid. (Can't say I blame them.) So they cry out to the Lord and His servant Moses. Moses tells them not to be afraid and announces the promise that makes up v. 14.

As we know, the Israelites are delivered. God came through. 

God 1, Egyptians 0. 

The point here is that the Israelites needn't have feared Pharaoh or Egypt or their troubling circumstance. They should have been fearing God and trusting in Him all along. But we're humans, and humans are frail. We let our minds and our selves get in the way of God's glory.

Here are some of the other translations of the verse - they might give an even better picture of what I mean:

"The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (ESV)

"The LORD himself will fight for you. Just stay calm." (NLT)

"The LORD is fighting for you! So be still!" (GWT)

If that last one doesn't sound like a father scolding his child, I don't know what does. 

As Christians, we should know this. We should know that it's better to "let go and let God." And the thing is, we do know that. We just don't live like we know it.

God calls on us to have a huge faith...a faith that He has things under control...a faith that we demonstrate boldly to the world by our words and actions. (More on that in an upcoming blog entry.)

God calls on us to stop barging in and taking charge, but to let Him do it. (Trust me, He's better at it than we are, anyway.)

After all, I am not the warrior - God is. I am weak; He is strong. In letting God fight for me, in surrendering my life to His care, I can have certainty that the ultimate battle will end in victory.

Life is a series of battles that we fight - whether with others, ourselves or Satan - day in and day out. 

So live it with me. Let God fight for you. And let us watch our battles be won, one day at a time. 

Let's be battle-tested...in a way that only God can make us so.