Thursday, September 1, 2011

Belief and Faith: Luke 8:40-48

I'm going to stray away a little on today's post from what I usually write about. If you've read the purpose of this blog you know that I write this as a means of sharing my experiences with trying to live a healthier and greener lifestyle, and to me that includes working on my relationship with God. I believe that it's important to work on the spiritual aspects of my life as well as they physical, thus from now on there will be the occasional posts about faith. Having said that, I've been in conversation with God a lot lately regarding some aspects of my life and yesterday I had a serious revelation that I feel that I need to share with as many people as possible.

The Faith to Make Things Happen


Have you ever wanted something, prayed for it, had God speak to you telling you that he would bless you with it and then didn’t receive it? Have you ever wondered why? Do you then question if God had really spoken to you or if you were simply all in your mind? I’m going to be honest, I have. Actually I often find myself in this situation and as I’ve been earnestly working on myself lately I wanted to know why. I asked God to show me why these situations occur in my life and I was honestly a little shocked by the answer: We often don’t receive our blessings because we don’t truly believe that God is and can.

Now I’m sure after reading that one line some of you reading this are pissed off. You thinking “Of course, I believe God is and can.” But do you really? Truly think about how you live your life and the words that come out of your mouth. I’ll give you an example from my personal life. At the age of 17, I began having debilitating migraines that grossly affected my quality of life.  I spent countless hours in the hospital and racked up a lot of money in hospital bills. I’ve had pretty much every neurological test run on me possible and from a medical prospective, nothing is wrong is me.  I’m perfectly healthy. No doctor could explain why I continued to have these migraines and the medication they gave me didn’t work, they were stumped and eventually I accepted that this problem would just be a part of my life. I didn’t have them very often so it wasn’t that big of a deal or so I thought. Recently I began having migraines back to back, again the doctors ran tests and again found nothing wrong. I changed my eating habits, my lifestyle and it changed nothing. Finally I became desperate and in my desperation turned to God. I prayed to God asking him to heal me. The next day I woke up and I felt better, everything seemed so clear, it was as if fog had been lifted from around me.  This went on for a few days and then one day I ate something that under my new healthy diet I shouldn’t have eaten and I didn’t drink the amount of water that I was supposed to drink and as the night came to a close I began being fearful of what the next day would bring. I began to fear losing the clarity that I had recently received or even worse having a migraine because of what I had eaten and what I hadn’t done. A few days later I did have a migraine, in terms of pain it was mild but it took a lot out of me. I was in bed, in the dark for almost 36 hours.  When I came back to my right mind I began to pray and ask God why this was happening to me. I believed that God was trying to teach me something but I couldn’t figure out what it was, today God revealed plainly the purpose behind all this. He was trying to get me to understand this point: People pray and say that they have faith in God but then act and/or speak is a manner that is contradictory to what they just professed. I’ll go back to the example I just gave regarding my migraines. I prayed and asked  God to heal me but then when I did something that went against the “lifestyle changes” that I had made in an attempt heal myself, I freaked out and became fearful  of what the outcome would be based on those actions. If I truly believed that God had healed me would it matter that I only drank 50 oz of water instead of 75 or that I ate Little Caesar’s pizza for dinner? No. Now I should try to be as healthy as possible, which would include being properly hydrated and eating a wholesome diet? Yes, of course but one day of compromise shouldn’t make or break me. My healing isn’t due to anything that I have done or could ever do, my healing comes from God. If I could have healed myself, I would have been healed a long time ago.

God lead me to Luke 8:40-48, which gives an excellent example of someone with a similar situation. When I compared myself to the woman in Luke 8:40-48, we had a lot in common.  The Bible says that the woman had been afflicted with hemorrhages, bleeding, for 12 years. She had spent every penny she had and no one could help her. At this point, this woman had to believe that her affliction was a part of her life, as I did. She understood that there was nothing that she could do to heal herself but she believed that Jesus could heal her. Think of how great her faith must have been, she believed so much that Jesus didn’t have to take the time to acknowledge her, that He didn’t have to touch her, she believed that if she touched his clothing that she would be healed.  What could we all do if we had faith like that?

The second thing that I took from this woman is this: When you have faith that God is going to bless you move forward as though you’ve already received the blessing. When the woman explained to Jesus why she touched Him, the Bible says “In front of all the people, she blurted out her story – why she touched him and how at that same moment she was healed.” Now let’s be completely realistic for a second, this woman suffered from hemorrhages aka bleeding, so I wouldn’t imagine that she suddenly felt herself stop hemorrhaging and yet when we presented her case before the crowd she told them that at the same moment she touched His robe she was healed. If you think about a situation in your life in which you’ve asked for something and it seems like nothing is happening have you ever considered the possibility maybe nothing is happening because you haven’t moved forward. So let’s give this point a real life scenario. Let’s say that your dream in life is to own a business. You pray about it, but that’s all you do. You never actually act. How is God supposed to make your business prosperous when you never start it? It’s just as important to move forward as it is to believe that God can and will. The act of moving forward is a outward expression of the faith that you have in God and the belief in what He’s promised you. What’s holding you back? What step do you need to take to start receiving your blessings? I know it’s cliché but everything starts with a leap of faith. 

Until next time, 
Kellan

4 comments:

  1. First of all this is the MOST meaningful and heartfelt post I've read in a long time. It hit home with me and I've always believed that everything happens for a reason: I was searching for a shopping tote tutorial and found yours (via Sew Mama Sew) then hit home to see your other post. So I say again it was meant for me to read your post, and yes I've been there before so I totally understand what you're saying.
    There are two points I copied to include in my comment: 1.What could we all do if we had faith like that? and 2.When you have faith that God is going to bless you move forward as though you’ve already received the blessing..I have a necklace pendant my mom gave me when I was about 19 or 20 years old. It's a circular pendant with a mustard seed in it. She used to talk to me almost daily about my faith because I had began to lack faith that anything positive was going to happen to or for me. I used to feel my mom praying for me even when we were not among each other. But today..at 41..I know all too well what God can do for us. Sometimes it's not just because we lack faith that we don't receive the blessing we asked God for. I've learned that often times we would have missed the blessing due to 1. the form/manner which is was presented. 2. God may not have seen fit for us to accept it at that time (we were not ready) 3. Or we just simple did not obey his order (as in steps, tongue, or what ever he may have commanded you to do). I'm trying to keep this short but it's so much I want to share. I've learned a lot throughout my walk, I've fallen several times, but I've also gotten up - repented and asked God to order my steps in HIM. In EVERYTHING we do we must always always remember to keep Christ first. We can do nothing without him. Some things we go thru are test..a test of faith. I've often said, " Lord I guess if I don't pass this test I'll have to take it again" lol. That's when I had to start praying that God will help me thru the trial I was facing at the time, let less of me show (attitude, etc) and more of him. That's when I started to see a change. And if we don't do what he wants us to do there's no possible way we can continue to be blessed.

    Thank you so much for letting God use you and post this. I'm so very thankful I found your blog..and to think this search came due to my finding some fabric on sale and wanting to make my own shopping bag:)

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  2. I loved this blog post. There is something in my life that I felt the same way about. I was completely sure it was something God wanted me to have but I doubted and it hasn't come to pass. Now my question is, if I work on believing will it still come to pass or is it too late. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. Just found your blog from pinterest...looked around and found this post. NEEDED to read this today. What am I doing in anticipation for my faith? Nothing...and that may be my problem...need to pray and seek His guidance as to what I should be doing/anticipating and I need to just DO IT!!!
    thanks for your post!

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  4. I just found your blog via Pinterest as well. I adore this post and He has shown me the same thing. It was good to be reminded of it today though.
    Thanks!

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