Thursday, February 25, 2010

Faithful to the Faithless

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." - 2 Tim. 2:13

How often do we fail to remain faithful to our God? How many times do we seem to forget to trust Him when things get hard? How frequently do we stray from His commands?

Oh, but even more importantly, how wonderful is it to know that our God will remain faithful even when we are faithless!!

Why would He continue to be faithful when it seems we have forgotten about Him? Why would be hold to His promises, when we doubt they will come true? Why, because He cannot do anything other than be faithful! Our God is perfect and unlike so many people we know, His Word is His bond. When He makes a promise, He must be faithful to fulfill that promise because if He did not, He would be denying Himself.

Too often, we deny Him. Too often we doubt. Too often we try to put our lives into our own hands. Thank the Lord, He continues to carry out His plan, His promises!

Imagine for a moment where we would be right now, if God decided one day to say, "Fine, if you will not have faith that I will carry out my promises to you, then I won't. If you don't believe I can use you, then I won't. If you don't think I can restore you to righteousness, then fine, I won't." Whoa! I'm sure we can all think of many many times that we are certainly thankful God did not just leave us high and dry because we wanted to be an idiot.

I can personally say that too often I have given Him good reason to say, "Forget it. You go your way, I'll go mine, since that seems to be what you want." But He doesn't do that. Instead He says, "As much as I wish you wouldn't do this, I'm going to let you, so I can show you how amazing my unconditional love is for you!"

Take some time today, this week, to thank God for His faithfulness in your life. It's the least we can do.


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

"Trust Me... Regardless"

I'm not one to be a scaredy-cat. Sure, I get a little scared of being up high, and my stomach goes nuts before getting on a roller coaster, but I still get on, because I know I will enjoy it. But there are things that even those of us who are not general scaredy-cats are fearful of happening. Especially for those of us who have others in our lives we are close to and love dearly (which I imagine is most of us, if not all of us). We fear something may happen to our loved ones. Now, for most people this is just an "in-the-back-of-your-mind" awareness. But for me, it has been

A HEART-WRENCHING, ALMOST PANIC ATTACK, MOVED TO TEARS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

condition. I have an overwhelming fear of either my husband dying - leaving me to raise 4 (soon to be 5) children on my own, or (I can barely think it) something happening to one of these precious little babies.

Those of you who may know me well may know that I have a wonderfully vivid imagination, but sometimes it gets a little out of hand. Even my dreams can be so vivid they seem real. Unfortunately, it has been a source of weakness, leaving me vulnerable to the enemy's attacks on my mind. I have often been left almost paralyzed by the thought process of what I would do, or where I would be if something like this happened.

But last night, I heard something wonderful, something completely freeing:

"IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO TRUST GOD TO NEVER ALLOW YOUR WORST FEAR TO HAPPEN."

We all want to say we trust God, but to what extent? I was limiting my trust in God to trusting that He would not allow those worst nightmares of mine to happen. But what if they did? Where would I be then? It would be incredibly hard for me to deal with at first, but my God is faithful and He will bring me through. He has brought me through the tough stuff before and He will do it again and again and again.

I DON'T NEED TO FEAR THE WHAT IFs BECAUSE MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN MY FEAR.

As overwhelming as my fear may seem, my God is bigger than my fear and I don't have to be afraid any more, because I can trust God even if my worst fear happens. How wonderfully freeing it is to know that regardless of what happens, I can still trust in my God to be faithful!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Cleaning House

I hate cleaning the house. It's tedious and laborious and by tomorrow it won't even look like I did anything. To be quite honest, the dirtiest part of my kitchen is under the table (and probably under the appliances). The dirtiest part of my living room is under the furniture. The dirtiest parts of pretty much any room in my house is under something that I don't want to have to move, and I'm pretty sure no one is going to see under anyway, so I don't bother. No matter the fact that these are the places where the germs fester and spread throughout the rest of the house.
Unfortunately, this is also true for my soul. It's so easy to not bother cleaning up the areas of my life that I think no one will see. The thoughts that no one has to know I had or feelings I have about someone or something, but don't share because it seems shameful. But just like the areas in my house that I neglect, these are the ares that affect everything else, even if not noticeably. Huh? Because these are the things that affect my character. Does it matter if no one else ever knows about it? No. God knows and He doesn't like it. That should be enough to make me want to take care of it. Is it tedious work trying to keep the secret places of my heart clean and pure? Of course it is! But I know that I don't have to do it alone. I have the Holy Spirit that can is living within me, and believe me, He's definitely checking under all the junk to make sure I'm not neglecting anything.
Does this mean I'm going to start cleaning my house better? Hey, I gotta start somewhere, and well, my life is more important. : )