Audacious Faith

You want me to let you in on a little secret? I've started like, 3 blog posts over the past 3 weeks, yet I couldn't seem to organize any of them in a concise way. This one included. So this will probably be pretty random and not very well structured.

So anyways, I like that word-audacious. It's the type of faith I really, really want, but don't seem to possess. Yet. The faith I do have, the faith that usually feels even smaller than that of a mustard seed, gives me hope that maybe one day I'll have faith that is completely unexplainable. I can tell that God is working on me though and it's pretty awesome to see. Let me tell you a little bit about it.

For probably the past year, my recurring prayer has been that God would build my faith. It's always been really lacking and I got so tired of it, so I kept asking (and keep asking) Him to do whatever it takes to build it up. I knew if I asked this that God wouldn't just zap me and say, "Have ye faith!" and I would have faith. I knew that if I asked Him this thing, that He would probably give me opportunities to exercise faith. I guess it's kind of like a muscle. The less you use it, the more useless it becomes. But the more you use it, the stronger it becomes, the more you are able to do with it. So I've had various opportunities to have faith in God. Some opportunities I failed, some I succeeded. But I had somewhat of a revelation last week.

The women's Bible study that I'm involved in has been studying about believing God. Not just believing in Him, but believing Him. So two weeks ago the session that we had was somewhat random but the thing that I took from it was that I was going to start asking God for big things. I'm sure you're thinking, "BFD, everyone asks for stuff from God", and you would be right. But whenever I ask God for big things, and they don't happen immediately, I assume God is irritated that I dared ask that and I had better stop. But our Bible study teacher presented it in the light of a little child asking something really crazy and big of parent. Something so ridiculous and audacious, that the parent gets so tickled about it that they can't stop laughing. They get a kick out of the kid, that he thinks his parent could do something so outrageous. And the Bible study teacher suggested that God could very well be like that. When we ask for something outrageous, instead of being irritated, He may be thinking, "You know, I can't give you that because it wouldn't turn out the best way, but that's pretty awesome that you think enough of Me to ask for something like that." And it just really gave me the courage to start praying for big things and expecting God to answer. He won't always give me the big things I ask for, but it's better to ask and get a no, then to live my whole life afraid to ask anything of Him and therefore not seeing any results.

So, through a series of events that led me to some pretty exciting prospects about the future, I started asking God for big things last week. And the cool thing is that He keeps affirming to me over and over again that He can do it. He might not, but then again, He might! And just because He may not give me the specific thing I asked for, that doesn't mean that He doesn't have something just as big, just different. But how will I know if I don't ask? "For without faith it is impossible to believe God, for anyone who comes to Him must believe that HE IS and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him". I want to be rewarded for my faith, but this verse has caused me all kinds of inner turmoil throughout my life. Wanna know why? Because most times, I have many, many doubts. And I used to think (and by 'used to', I mean since like last week) that if I had doubts, I didn't have faith. But God revealed to me that faith is not the absence of doubt! It's the pressing on despite the doubts and keeping the faith. This realization has opened up so much of God to me, because I realized I don't have to feel like I believe 100% in order to still believe! Like the centurion, I can say "I do believe! But please God, help my unbelief." I can still please God by my faith, even though doubt is still present. And as He reveals more about Himself, I'm hoping that less and less unbelief will be present, and more and more faith will grow. Incidentally, I would be a very happy camper if God took away my doubts. But even if He doesn't, I'll still believe. I want to be able to say at the end of my life, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

So, I say all of that to say, God is building my faith! Just like I asked Him too! It's hard, it's not glamorous by any means at all, and if I weren't paying attention it would be so easy to miss! I'm sure there are parts of it that I do miss. But it's so awesome to see God keep His word and stay faithful. He's really awesome.

"DO NOT fear, for I AM WITH YOU. DO NOT anxiously look about you, for I AM YOUR GOD. I WILL strengthen you, SURELY I WILL help you, SURELY I WILL uphold you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10