Just Because There Are Nightmares, Doesn't Mean Dreams Won't Happen

Dream Giver, a book by Bruce Wilkinson is a book I reviewed sometime ago (search my blog). A good read, and encouraging one if you haven't read it. I have gone back and re-read the book several times, this past week among them.  It is always hard when things seem black in life around you, to understand that if you just hang on - good things will happen. We all have our catch phrases from scripture, such as Isa.41:10  fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  This is good to remember and speaks truth. Yet, we all need to remember that for every good that God brings, the Evil one is out there to bring 10 more dark things into your life to break you. This is the test of faith and patience.  Are dreams out there? Yes!  Can life be good? Yes!  Can things improved? Yes! But the fact of life is this, that Satan will bring hell into your life before that sunshine comes.  There is an old song, sung by Peggy Lee "Is that all there is" that speaks of this exasperation. 

Here are some things to understand in waiting in faith to have God be our aid, strength and our help. 

1. Life WILL be dark. Evil always plays the Goliath, the looming, threatening bully, the

   

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   impossible. Its favorite phrase is, "YOU CAN'T."  This is where faith will be tested and trust will be strained. The closer you get to the brighter side of things, the darker evil will become and will make life appear. Evil wants you to be afraid, it wants you to doubt, it wants you to assume that there is no way out. Evil wants you to think that there is no tomorrow. Evil wants you to think that God does not care, is not watching, has left you, etc. 
2. God's Caring and/or Providing for you, sometimes has nothing to do with what YOU want. We often assume that God wants what we want and this simply is not the case. Why do you think even Jesus prayed, "not as I will, but as you will. Mt.26:39)."  I want a log of things, and to be honest, I don't want a lot of what happens to me in life, I don't like a lot of the emotions that I feel. Yet, that doesn't mean that these are going to be taken from me. This is where trust has to abide, because this is where faith will be ultimately tested.  Will I stay true when the reasons for my doing so are removed? Will I stay true to God, when it seems that God has "left" me?
3. You WILL feel like CRUD. One of the greatest miracles, is not healing, or some

   

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   stupendous sign. One of the greatest miracles is God healing a broken soul. I personally believe that this was the lesson that Paul learned when he stated, "2 Cor. 12:9  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  However, you still have to go through the weakness. You still have to go through the pain. You still have to go through the circumstance.  The question here, is God's grace sufficient for you?
4. Don't try to OUT DO or DECIDE for God.  Part of faith and trust is not only for God to get us beyond our struggles, but to be satisfied with what God provides on the other side.  This was the problem that we learn from Old Testament Israel in the wilderness. This is why they fell in the wilderness and did not see the Promised Land (Heb.4:1-11). They were hungry and God provided Manna - yet, they were not happy with what God provided. We often want to decide for us what we think God wants for us. The truth is, we don't even know the mind of God (1 Cor.2:16). We do not know what God has planned for us.  Just as a small child has total trust in their parents that whatever is going to happen next is going to be the best thing for them, so must our trust with God be even when we cannot see the other side. 

I write this article in the midst of my own trials, and yes, my own trust being strained. Yet, like Paul I find the courage to keep on, and like my Lord I bow my head and raise my hand and say "Thy Will Be Done."  What else can I do? Let evil consume me?  How can I, when God's mercy has been so great upon me? He gave His Son for me, how can I do anything but trust Him?

Jim

It takes FAITH to Listen to God!

As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. [He was appointed our father] in the sight of God in Whom he believed, Who gives life to the dead and speaks of the nonexistent things that [He has foretold and promised] as if they [already] existed.

Rom.4:17

One of the hardest things to realize is that God is in control of things when those things are going south and fast. It is also hard to maintain faith, when things like cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, infertility, and unemployment seem to be invading your life on a regular and persistent basis. These types of things get out of your control and you can’t do anything about it. They leave you feeling helpless, and if you're not careful, evil and evil influences can cause you to think that God has abandoned you. 

Something to remember, is that the situation you are in may be out of your control, but it’s not out of God’s control.  

Romans 4:17 reminds us of that. There are two things God does that you can’t do: 

1. He can give life to the dead
2. He can create something out of nothing.

Those are some very awesome things. If God can give life to a dead man, the God can can give life to a dead career, a dying marriage, a fading dream or a financial dead-end. There is a lot of motivational speakers that talk about the power of positive thinking, and positive thinking is a needed thing in life. However, it wasn't just positive thinking that Abraham believed in. Positive thinking beats negative thinking because negative doesn't work! But understand that positive thinking is not faith in God. They are two very different things. Positive thinking works fine in situations you have control over because you can move within the circumstances to change them. It takes faith in God to be in something totally out of your control, beyond your ability, and outside of your means to do anything to get through those things. You need faith in God, because He can control a situation, when you can’t. In fact, most of life is beyond your control, and there is very little that you can manipulate. 

Jesus reminds us in Lke 18:27, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” Throughout the Bible's history, God has specialized in the impossible. We call them miracles and you need to know that God is ready to turn your dead-end into deliverance.

So, here are some good questions to consider on this subject:

• What issues are you facing today that are straining your faith?
• Do you still believe that God is in control and can work with you to change those things?
• Why is it sometimes difficult to admit that something is out of your control?
• Do you feel evil or evil influence whispering in your ear that God has abandoned you?

Maybe it is time today, to quit struggling with life and its circumstances. Positive thinking not working for you? Maybe it is time to understand that it takes more than a positive attitude and thought to get through the turmoil. Perhaps you should try talking to, listening to, and trusting that God has not abandoned you. He's just waiting for you to stop "Kicking against the pricks (Acts 9:5)."

Jim

Experience Can Be A Harsh Teacher

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"? 

Gal 3:3-6  

We learn from many things and may senses. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, all of these are given to us that we might sense and learn in life. This is called gaining experience and experience can be both good and bad. To apply experience, you have to go back over it mentally and ask, “Was I successful and where was I not? What got me excited about this?” Is this experience worth in the grand scheme of things, pursuing again or is it something detrimental that I should never do again? Everything that you experience are lessons for your life; you just have to spend time examining them. When you do, you’ll see that in every failure are the seeds of success — if you learn from them.

I do not know why some people have to go through certain experiences to perceive truth, but, we are human and that is what humans do. Either we learn from experiences to make us better people, or we are destined to repeat the experience until we do, or we dive into the lies that come when I refuse to learn from what experience is teaching. This is what Paul is trying to get the Galatians to understand in Galatians 3, that I cannot start walking by the Spirit of God, and then claim to be enhancing that by augmenting it with drugs, ritual or repetition of allowing bad habits back into my life by claiming they remind me of what is good. 

Joseph in the book of Genesis (Gen.30-50) is a good example of this. A man who had one bad experience in life after another, yet strives to serve God through all of them. He always keeps his good character even through his bad experiences.  Yet, it is not until much later in life, that Joseph realizes that everything he experienced was for a particular moment. 

Esther is another, who after seeing he people become captive in a foreign land, being stigmatized because of her nationality is chosen to be queen of Persia, only to have that blessing become the greatest challenge in her life. Est.4:14  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" These famous words show us that God takes us through things that we don’t understand at the time, but later realize that it shaped you into who you are. Maybe you’re in the middle of something like that right now. Trust that God will use your circumstances to show you what he shaped you to do and how you can use your life to serve him.

Have you learned from the experiences in your life?

Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to it.  If you hear the message and don't obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don't just hear and forget.

 Jas 1:22-25

Jim