He went out, not knowing where he was going —Hebrews 11:8
Oswald Chambers said "Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason—a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world."
God has been
keeping me on this holding and waiting pattern for so long that it is truly
discouraging for any human being. If God has not put your whole life on hold to
the point where you can see that your life is literally passing away right in
front of your eyes, yet nothing, I mean absolutely nothing that you do works,
then you have no idea what it means to wait on, upon and for God. For the past
15 years that I have been a Christian, any normal person would let go of
Christianity. For me Christianity has been a synonym for being a “looser” big
time. Sometimes, I feel I can’t even find the strength to think that God has
not forgotten me. Sometimes I console myself with the idea that He put me on a
fast track mode for a reason, because I cannot justify the lost, and the unending
holding pattern. But, even when He shuts me out after I obey Him, I keep going
forward with Him because I know too much to go back. When nothing makes sense
and I feel like the biggest loser who has walked this earth, I keep going. When
all my life is screaming that He has abandoned me, I keep going, knowing in His
time, He will make everything right.
I have gone
through phases with Him where He increased my faith more than I can imagine. You
see, God has a pattern where He tests you and if you pass the test which means
you make use of the amount of faith He allocates you, then He increases your
faith. But lately, I have been asking Him, how come you stopped increasing my
faith? Have I reached a plateau where I am not in your will or not trusting you
enough? He did not answer me, however, a while after I inquired about my faith,
He kept giving me a vision which I truly enjoy because it is so soothing to my
soul. Today, as I read the devotional, I realized that He actually did answer my
question. The visions that I have been getting are my answer to the question. The
only thing is, through the vision, what I have been living in my soul is
similar to some sort of higher sanctification stage. It is soothing because I
can see how I am mellowing in His hands like I am disappearing slowly as He is
increasing tenfold. I can feel that the
increase portion is His character being worked in me and I talked about that in
my most recent posts.
Today, God opened
my eyes to see that Oswald Chambers used the words that express all that I have
been experiencing. I did not know this was the final stage of faith. I had
tears of joy in my heart because as I reflect back, I know without the shadow
of a doubt, that even when everyone told me that my situation could not be of
God. Even when I was told by leaders
that I should take matters in my hands and make things happens, I always run
things through God’s process and what I knew in my heart was right with the
Holy Spirit. So today, I understand with a heart full of excitement, joy and
gratitude what it means to walk a steadfast walk.
True faith will
always take us to a place where God calls us friend. This will not be a vague
idea that you read about in the Bible or glibly repeat in a song. But the Holy
Spirit will take pleasure to witness to your heart that you are now a friend of
His. God, will not stop there, He will find an opportunity to share things with
you that He would only share with a friend and when He does that, He will tell
you that it is the privilege of being a friend of His.
True faith will lead
you to a place where you know that it is not up to you to apply the
characteristics of Christ within, but up to the Holy Spirit to do it. True
faith will bring a radical change in your life and your heart. If it is not working
out this radical change, then it is okay for you to question to what extend do
you believe in God. A life of radical obedience will always lead you to a place
where you can understand through your bones, every word of Christ’s
crucifixion. True faith will always take you to a place where you stop
imagining what God’s word means because you have become a living protagonist is
the play. Until you become a protagonist, you have no idea what true faith
means. Faith in God cannot be a vague idea and it cannot be our idea of what
faith means. It has to be alive and leading your life because this faith we are
called to live out in Him, is not our faith but Christ’s faith in us. Hence
why, true faith will always take you through the same process that Christ went
through and the same road. Anything short of that, then we can be sure that our
faith is a blind faith. If it is a blind faith, it is not anchored in Christ. Abraham started as a coward, yet he became the
father of faith. TRUE FAITH WILL ALWAYS BRING WITH IT A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION.
OSWALD CHAMBERS "The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles’ wings, but is a life of day—in and day—out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith—a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. “Abraham believed God. . .” (Romans 4:3)."
