Immense Faith

Over the past year, the theme of God's working in my life has centered around Him teaching me more and more about His faithfulness.

What a ride it's been.

Some stories here and there have been shared on this blog or in conversations I've had with some of you...others have been shared on our private blog about what God's doing in our hearts through our finances...

But there are stories and this verse has been the theme through them all:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  Phillipians 4:6

Worry about NOTHING...because God is FAITHFUL.

Sometimes in the past I've taken that to mean "because he is faithful to work this out...to fix this problem..to heal this sickness..."

And those are all true statements, but it doesn't mean those things are His will.

You see I used to think of God being faithful as God "doing" something...but I have since leanred that God being faithful means that God IS.

God IS love...he loves me.
God IS good...therefore He intends me no eternal harm.
God IS believable...He is who He says He is...
God IS faithful...God IS.

Faith fights...it presses on through the trials, through the pain, through the uncertainty...because on the other side is eternal life with Jesus in GLORY.

Wanna know about a gift we received last night? A precious friend came to our house and blessed us with incredibly rich conversation about (you guessed it) God's faithfulness. He was, just a few weeks ago, at his wife's death bed letting her go to live with Jesus, and shared with us some of those final days.
He began to share how his wife had been praying that she would be given glimpses of Heaven on her death bed so that she could share some of what she saw in those final days on earth.
God granted her that.
She shared some of these experiences with her daughter and husband, and hearing him in turn share those with us ignited a mighty sense of JOY in my soul I can't even begin to explain on here. I challenge you to read their blog post about it and see if the same Joy might be ignited in your soul.
I came away from our conversations feeling like Jesus had just given me a precious gift. A gift encouraging me to keep fighting...keep perspective on what brings glory to His Kingdom and leave alone that which is selfishly motivated.

Oh and what was our Beth Moore subject this morning???
Faithfulness. :)

And just yesterday Lincoln was acting sick again and we thought Noah had pink eye. I knew what the subject was this morning and I wanted to be there more than any other time this semester. I felt it was an attack. Seriously.
So I prayed...I prayed against illness that I would be able to go and hear God speak.
He answered. :)

Here are some things on faith and prayer (which fuels our faith) that I have collected over the years...some scribbled throughout my Bible (particularly in the Hebrews 11 area) and some gathered through speakers and such:

Faith is believing God CAN...even if He doesn't.

Faith is confidence in God, even before we see Him emerging.

Faith is a certainty about God that transforms the way we live.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

When we get down, God gets UP, and the devils/evils of the world start RUNNING in fear.