Having Faith When the Situation Seems Hopeless

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.  Romans 8:28 HCSB

How do you have faith when everything that you know comes crashing down?  Have you ever felt hopeless?  

I remember when I got sick in college.  I had prayed that I did not have Lupus, repeatedly.  In my mind, I was devastated because there was nothing the doctors could give me those two weeks I waited to find out, because they themselves did not know what was going on.  I was asking why me, why am I still alive, why am I suffering?  I had lost hope, or rather I had lost faith.  I had lost belief and trust in God because I could not understand what was going on at the time.  I was thinking about myself, thinking about why did that thing had happened to me.  But I remained prayerful, because it was the only thing I knew that would produce a result.

Of course all along I was praying, so I never lost sight of what I knew--which was that God had to heal me.  Even though I was still in a vulnerable place, my faith was my reality and I knew that God's word was truth.  So sometime after I had been released, I talked to one of my mentors.  I told her that God was going to heal me and she said that God doesn't heal everybody. I realized I could not receive her words because it went against the truth that God had revealed to me in my heart and in His word.  I held on to that belief and rested in the fact that I could not accept things went against what I knew...and I can say that from 2003 to 2006 my lupus serologies were negative; it was positive once while I was hospitalized in February of 2006, and it has never been positive since.

I thought about these things today as I left the courthouse.  I witnessed several men and a few women that have fallen into a state of hopelessness, or truthfully speaking, disbelief.  They do not believe in anything and accept life as they see it as reality and their lives and choices manifest the evidence of it.  And I asked God, how can we maintain faith in a place like this?  How can you have faith when the system (well, the legal system here in New Orleans, that is, and I'm sure several other places, but metaphorically speaking) is orchestrated for your failure?

I realized this as I got some news that would have depressed most people...but because I know that God has control of everything, I am faithful that it will work out and truthfully not concerned.  We maintain faith in desolate places by remembering the truth of God's word.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17.  It is the promises of God, and the things He has already done for us and for others that should serve as the foundation for our faith.  I digress and I realize that most of you may not be like me; there are things that I know as truth and fact--The Word--and for those things there is nothing that can come against it.  Being raised in the church and as the granddaughter of a preacher, one thing I was raised to know, was that the Word of God was, is and will always be fact.  So despite doubting because I had momentarily accepted what I saw as reality, I was reminded of the scripture above that has come to be one of my favorites.  Knowing or believing in a thing makes it a fact for us.  When we condition our minds to acknowledge the Word of God as fact, all else fades away.  It is at that point that your faith becomes your reality and the things you are believing God for are merely waiting in the queue, so to speak, to manifest.  It is in having that Word database that you are able to encourage yourself and others when life may be saying otherwise.

So the key to having faith even when the world seems to be crashing around you, when everything you have known is no more, is in trusting what you know--trusting and relying on the promises of God.  Even when your mind says no, you have to make the decision to keep trusting in God's word.  Trust in what He has done for you.  Trust in what He has done time and time again and bear down in your faith and know that your breakthrough awaits.  You must know that this situation and all others in your life will ultimately work out for your good, because like the Word, it is written.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.  Psalm 34:19 KJV2000
Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.  Psalm 71:20 NIV

In First Place

You shall have no other gods before Me. Exodus 20:3 NASB

In the beginning of God's deluge to Moses on the rules of law that the children of Israel were to live by stands one of the greatest commandments. You shall have no other gods before Me. And in listening to a message on First Fruits almost two minutes ago, it dawned on me what that really meant. Have no other gods before me...this meaning I can't have my family, my friends, my relationships, work, school, health, finances and money, anything or anyone, before Him.

I realize now that for all my life up until this point, that this lesson is what God has been trying to show me. Of course God especially personalizes this journey for each of us...but I now see that everything I have gone through has served to draw me closer to Him and to teach me this single fact. We must not have any other god before Him. Because all of these things can be come a 'god' for us...fame and attention, prosperity, power, lust, influence, work, our significant others...we allow these things to manipulate our schedules and control our sleeping. They influence when we wake up, what we will do when we leave work and when we get home. They even dictate how much time we spend with God, which service we go to and how long it needs to be. It all makes sense now.

It is essential to our faith that we learn to reverse the roles and the mistakes taught to us by everyday life. We must realize that it is in the reordering of those lists that the things that are most important can all be accomplished when we place those things at God's feet after we have subjected ourselves to His instructions. It is when we start the day with prayer, praise and worship to and of Him that we can see those things fall into place before us. It is when we seek His dreams, visions, and appointed purposes for our lives that we begin to truly know who we are and truly begin to enjoy our lives here. It is when we put Him first in everything, that everything that was once a disarray and out of order becomes a flowing process. You begin to meet the right people at the right time to help you bring to pass those new 'ideas,' you meet that special someone because you have allowed God to reorder your life and priorities and give you a new value system, and you start really making those millions you have dreamed about (well, I know I will be making them soon, lol).

God has to be first. Before everything, every person, and every situation. God allows us to 'go through', revealing those voids in our lives so that we must seek Him. It was not until my daddy died and seemingly all hell broke loose that I really had to go to Him to get it all together. It was in almost having something I have always desired that I realized that I did not want that thing without God. With God first, everything you need and truly desire will manifest. With God first, there is no lack. With God first, everything comes to you instead of you seeking those things. Put Him first today, drop everything and let God give you those things back in their proper order--then watch your life take on a form you never dreamed of! Watch God blow your mind!

All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 28:2 NASB

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty. Proverbs 14:23 HCSB

 

Okay so truth moment, well all of my devotions are truth moments for me haha. But seriously, sometimes I feel as if I have never really pushed myself in pursuit of anything in my life.  I have often done only the bare minimum, and instead I gave the illusion of hard work by stretching myself with several other tasks to compensate for that fact.  I can remember a few instances...and it is taking everything within me not to break down and cry.  At the slightest sign of opposition most times, I have quit or lashed out like a spoiled child. 

 

In high school, I was ranked number one since forever (I graduated valedictorian).  I really didn't have to do much to do well, evidenced by the fact I was often discouraged from answering questions because my teachers knew I knew the answer.  I got really lazy my senior year--in particular, I was in AP Calculus and my teacher threatened me with an F and actually called my mom, which caused me to break down and cry, and hurry up and get my act together.  Fast forward to freshman year of college, I had straight As and could sleep through Calculus (yeahhhhh I had to repeat it because yep I was lazy and didn't score high enough on the AP exam in high school).  But biology, which did not teach me to enough so that I could actually pass a test and because I didn't know how to study, I couldn't teach myself the material or go to study groups with the other students.  So I dropped that class at the threat of a D marring my academic record.  To think the only thing between me and being a doctor was that dang class lol...

 

I started off well with my LSAT studies last year but got distracted and did the bare minimum there.  I did well enough to get into Law School and it was by the grace of God that I got a grant covering a majority of my tuition.  Now the things I have genuinely worked for: every sport I played (I was told I was not athletically inclined so I had to prove that wrong), graduation, becoming a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., redeeming myself with a professor who thought I was a slacker, dropping pounds with my trainer my grad year (life on prednisone I tell ya), and in some of my relationships among other things...  I really felt something with those because I worked and did the work to achieve those things.

 

Even now, I have gotten my first semester's grades back from law school and I did the bare minimum (for Marquita, that is) and I did my usual task juggling (full-time work and school).  I did not flunk out, thank God, but I did not do as well as I would have liked either.  So today I realized something about myself.  I was lazy.  (I released laziness before I went into 2013).  I did not know how to study and because of all those years of not being challenged academically or encouraged to work hard, I failed to rise to the occasion here and dropped the ball, sorta.  Although I tried studying with others, I was inconsistent with the things that mattered--adequate preparation for one of my classes, actual studying and testing myself before finals, reinforcing the things I know about how I learn--and my efforts were insufficient to produce the results I desired.  Although in my defense, I am having to learn to learn differently and for that matter, internalize the fact that the answer is not what is important, it is how you got the answer, well the explanation (total opposite of what I have learned my entire life).  

 

Strangely enough, many of us do this in life--we resist and quit or throw a temper tantrum because: 1) we are not challenging ourselves spiritually and are thus not growing or 2) we have challenged ourselves to pursue a deeper relationship with the Father and we give up at the first sign of tension.  Then we feel as if we have failed so we turn our backs on God.  Fortunately life is a lot like school, so the only way we flunk out of life is if we refuse to learn the lesson by adapting to the circumstances and ultimately choose to live a life without God.  The beauty of this lesson is that we can change, re-take the test and pass!

 

To many people, the efforts I have taken over the years seem like a lot and that I actually accomplished something...but for me it wasn't.  It was easy to juggle 30-something tasks to compensate for the fact that I was not being challenged in the most important way.  In fact, busyness was my coping mechanism to not deal with the world, well that and reading a whole lot of books.  Actually I recognize now that I was filling voids with busyness when I should have been filling voids with God.  The more I had going on, the more occupied my life felt.  It served to keep my mind off my reality, which was that something was missing from my life.  However, depending on what that thing was, the more it challenged me, the more likely I was to quit and do something else unless I was encouraged to keep pressing.  Actually, it was only the things in life that I have prayed and asked for God's help, strength and favor that I successfully completed.  I was like that potential I saw in the men I had dated...resting and untapped.  But the change for me now is having people that believe in me and my success and now I want to do this for me (well, for God--He did give me the dream, lol).

 

This lesson goes back to my prayer and desire to become the Proverbs 31 woman, which includes being a woman of integrity and a hard worker among other things.  (See Proverbs 31:10-31)  When we ask God to teach us certain things, for the process that results to truly be productive, it will involve that painful act of exposure, removal of the blinders and actually seeing yourself for who you really are.  When I looked at myself from that perspective, I got sad but quickly saw that there was hope, and for that hope I have faith that God has changed me.  So it does not matter to me anymore: I will be successful and a hard worker from this day forward.  Daily God reveals something about me, and daily my respect, honor and love for and faith in Him grows more.  Making these changes will make me into the woman He called me to be, but more importantly, give Him the glory.  Allow God to really use you and endure that hard work called self-improvement and spiritual growth.  You will be glad to become who you were called to be, so forget the past and press forward which means you have some work ahead of you!

 

I think of this scripture and I will most certainly keep this as my confession from today forward: Brothers and sisters, I can't consider myself a winner yet. This is what I do: I don't look back, I lengthen my stride, and I run straight toward the goal to win the prize that God's heavenly call offers in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:13-14 GWT

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"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17
http://lifeinspiredbygod.com/

Take A Back Seat

Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day.  Psalm 25:5 NASB

 

There is a song called "Background" by Lecrae, and the chorus says "Won't you take the Lead, lead, lead...and I can play the background, the background and you can take the leeeeeeaaaaad (lol)."  In talking with my friend last night, I realized the importance of losing control to God by remembering how I felt when it happened to me.  

 

I did not realize how much I had felt the need to be in control of my life until I lost it.  I mean virtually everything I had planned happened for me with no struggle: I graduated high school with no problems, got into every school I applied to, and even had school paid for.  I was able to attend an out-of-state college in Atlanta which is where I said I wanted to be and live for school.  I had a boyfriend and great friends, so my life was peachy.  I had never been sick majorly, only colds and allergies that I can think of, and of course the measles and chicken pox.  But there was really no opposition whatsoever.  Then almost seemingly the world as I knew it came crashing down around me junior year when I was diagnosed with kidney disease.  Everything that I knew had changed and that control I had unknowingly cherished was snatched from my grasp.  I hated that God had even kept me alive because I did not understand why I had to suffer.  I see now that it has only been growth and a maturing of my faith that has revealed the necessity of those things in my life as well as praying for God to lead me and show me how to manifest the life He wants for me.

At this point in my life, I know and take comfort more each day in God's leading me.  A scripture I meditate on pretty regularly now is Psalm 32:8, which says "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you." (NASB)  I actually like the AKJV better because it says "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with my eye."  God promises to lead and guide us on the best pathway for our lives and that He will guide us with His eye.  I take that to mean that God will give us several things: a divine vision of the path we are to follow, 'insider' tips and information on how to succeed revealed by His Spirit, and basically an answer key to pass any trial and test that comes.  

However if you are like I was, hard-headed and determined to live life your way, I am sure this seems unfathomable and totally foreign to you.   How can a God you cannot see lead you?  If you are honest, you've felt this way before too.  I questioned everything and fought to get my way, which resulted in some of the worst times in my life...all because I wanted to do what I thought was best for me.

I have since surrendered to God and I pray daily that He leads me and shows me the way.  Life isn't easy, but God and His provision of the above--a vision for me to follow, tips (words to my heart and mind from the Holy Spirit, prophetic guidance from godly counsel, and the Spoken Word), and the answer key (the Bible), I have done a whole lot better than I did in the past.  We have to learn to release the reins and get in the back of the buggy.  We have to move to the back of the train and let God be the conductor.  We have to allow God to drive the bus because He alone knows the way.  We cannot believe that we alone have it all together and that God has no place or purpose in our lives.  It was not until I finally exhaled to let go that my life truly began to take shape and take off.  Get in the back seat and ride.  Let God take the lead and show you what you need!

Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.  Psalm 143:10 NASB

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"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17
http://lifeinspiredbygod.com/