A funny thing happened today that tells me that I could not really “run-away” from God and when He gives you a prompting you jolly well follow it. The question of course is whether you can recognise the prompting as having come from God? Anyway, that’s not the topic for this blog entry.
Yesterday, for some reason, I was actually prompted to write about belief and failure and the example that came to me was a scene from Star Wars that by the way is one of my favorite science fiction series and I mean not just the movies but also the books and comics. Here’s the funny thing, when we went to church this morning, the article printed on the cover page of the newsletter was “Don’t use the Force” and it was peppered with terms and comparison with the myths of Star Wars and I sort of scratch my head and look to God and say “very funny”. So here’s what I was prompted to write:
In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker was training under Yoda on the planet Dagobah. In one of the scene, Luke’s X-Wing fighter was sinking into the bog where he sort of crash landed. Using the “Force”, Luke attempted to lift the X-Wing out of the bog but failed and proclaimed “I can’t. It’s too big.” And when Yoda in using the Force, was able to lift the X-wing free effortlessly, Luke proclaim further “I don't believe it.” and Yoda retorted “That is why you fail.”
Think about it. How often have we attempted to do something especially something for God and we failed and we proclaim that either it was too difficult or that we are not equipped or we simply did not believe that it would work in the first place? This is the part that I probably will be very controversial because with my example, I would be implying that you failed because you don’t believe. In Hebrews 11, there are a lot of examples about faith or what about Matthew 17:20 “And said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” or Luke 17:6 “And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.”
What was also nagging at me when the prompting came was the statement that I had made in my blog entry “Journey In Faith” posted on 28 April 2013 where I said “…but I know the “better” thing that God had provided in Christ His Son and to expand it further, when Christ ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit who will strengthen and comfort me and if the Spirit be willing, my healing.” So is it true that you failed because you don’t believe? Probably… but have we not all failed at one time of another? Even the great men in Hebrews 11 had failed at one time of another in their lives. Isn’t it also why God sent His Spirit and in today’s sermon in church the biblical reference was from John 16:7-15 but I want to go off context a little from today’s sermon by just quoting John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”
The development of faith is a process and if you had followed my blog, you will also notice that my faith in God did not come overnight. It came because of a traumatic event, it came as God slowly revealed Himself to me, it came also as I choose to surrender to Him. The question is what you would do to allow God to work in you, to assist you with the aid of the Holy Spirit to develop that faith that in turn would allow you to say you believe even to the extent that you will continue to believe “even if He does not” (Daniel 3:17-18).
My encouragement for you is that you remain strong in the Lord especially when someone else comes along and tells you that you lack faith or that your faith is not strong enough. Trust in the Lord, trust in His grace and mercy because the words of these people only seek to destroy and put people down when the word of the Lord says in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.”
It is a very difficult journey for me and when I was writing all my posts, it comes with some trepidation because I do not know if they are biblically sound or worse, bordering on heresy. Despite all these, I put my trust in God that He will lead me, that the Holy Spirit will inspire me in my writing. Going by the number of encouraging words that I had received concerning my blog and those that said that they were encouraged by my writing then, I believe God had worked. How difficult is my journey? I weighed myself this morning and I had lost another 200g. I tried to eat and the appetite is generally good but I have difficulty eating larger quantity of food. The pain although not extreme is disturbing enough that I am tripling my night time dose of morphine so that I can get some decent sleep. However, my trust is still in God.
A couple of days ago when I was helping to prepare the chords sheets for today’s worship in church, there was a song “10,000 Reasons” by Jonas Myrin and Matt Redman. Verse 3 of the songs was something that struck a chord with me but at that time, I did not think too much about it but during worship today, the words came back and it touched me deeply when it says:
And on that day, when my strength is failing,
The end draws near, and my time has come;
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years, and then forevermore!
Or the chorus to the song “Joy of My Desire” by Jennifer Randolph that says:
I worship You in spirit and in truth.
I worship You In spirit and in truth.
There will never be a friend as dear to me as You.
I was tearing and almost burst out in unrestrained cries but I was also trying to hold back my tears. When God touched you, you will know it. Although these two verse and chorus is more like a proclamation of the feelings that is within my heart but what I felt was that God had heard me, had reached out to me, had heard my prayer from 1 Kings 8:57-59 and is comforting me.
In God We Trust and in Christ alone my hope is found.
Hebrews 11:1