Faith Through Adversity | LIBIER
Photography by: Doug Reynolds / Hair by: Victoria @Cuvee Salon
Life sometimes doesn’t make any sense. When you think you’ve figured any part out it goes in unexpected and twisty turns and circumstances you never thought possible come to threaten your plan and threaten your sense of worth and safety. One moment things can seem almost perfect and at the drop of a hat your world is shattered leaving you no vision for clarity or hope. There are moments so dark and grief-stricken, they can take our breath and makes us question the sovereignty and goodness of God. Why? Why this? Why me? Why them? I don’t know abut you friend, but I know I’ve come up against many a moment that has me doubting weather or not God loves me. Or I ask myself what’s wrong with me? What did I do to deserve the pain I’ve somehow wondered into. There are moments that I’ve questioned if it’s worth keeping up the fight or would everything just be better if I gave up on my dreams or on pressing forward in faith and believe that God is still God and I can rest in him.
This weekend for me had me so tender to so much evil in this world. It had my heart on high of pain and grief over some personal things in my life and also hurting for everyone in Pittsburgh and other things that don’t make senes in my head if I’m just thinking with my own understanding. Things that seem unfair and unjust. If God is so good than why does he “allow” so much pain and hurt to happen? Can often be questions that my subconscious will throw out at me. But here is what I’m learning.
Faith is belief and belief is trusting through the adversity.
Belief of something I can not see.
Belief of God being good in the good times takes no effort.
Belief of God being good in the bad times is faith realized.
Belief that God is JUST in the end and that I don’t determine justice from my own point of view is wisdom and freedom.
Belief that God is sovereign and that when he allows something terrible to pass in the natural that HE IS WORKING A POWERFUL AND MIGHTY-WORK IN THE UNNATURAL to bring his people closer to his heart.
Belief that what Jesus wants most is for us to know our identity is in him. Our safety is in him. Our hope is in him. Our worth in him. He is a jealous God and wants us to love and trust in him above anything else. BECAUSE he knows what idols do to our soul! He is ultimately a GOOD FATHER.
Belief that we belong and are at our best when we abide in Christ.
Belief makes things possible when they seem impossible. But faith to praise him when only the possible is being displayed in my life. Even when I believe God to be capable of moving a mountain and doing the impossible in my life and he doesn’t. Yet, I will praise him in the possibility of my ordinary moments and have faith that IF / WHEN he wants to move for HIS glory, he shall! Faith that even if he doesn’t move that mountain, my heart will still praise him. Trust without expectations of him to move in my timing or expectation brings me ultimate peace.
Belief that I should not lean on my own understanding; Even though I have a brain that offers me thoughts like, “I would do this so much better if I were God!” And instead what serves me best is to TRUST/ BELIEF/ HAVE FAITH in the character of God through unexplainable circumstances. Things that are crushing my heart. The painful memories of the past. The grief of loss and illness. The uncertainty of change that is out of my control. The anxiety that flairs up when I think of my future without him in it. No! I will Trust. Belief. Have Faith. For isn’t faith the currency that pleases the Lord most? It answers the question to myself and to him. Is he sovereign? Yes. Do I trust him? Yes. Who am i to question the king of kings and to presume I’d run the world better than him?
Belief in him because when my fear is him nothing else can shake me. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strenght! - Philippians 4:13”
Belief that Jesus absorbed my sin even when I didn’t love him. That he chose his love for me over his comfort or safety. That he sacrificed his life to give me mine is what makes the FAITH, TRUST, BELIEF so much more bearable! Because I know the POWER that rose Jesus from the dead is now within me to empower me to have TRUST that didn’t belong to me. To have kindness, love and mercy that did not reside within me. To forgive others as he forgave me.
Belief that I am seen as made right because of his sacrifice and if he did that for me than I get to love myself in-spite of me! I get to swim in a grace that didn’t seem possible. My wrap sheet and sin crimson they read. But he paid it all for me to live life instead believing to my core that he remembers my sin no more! It’s as if it had never been! Unshakable truth and overwhelming grace dwell within me.
Trust that the character of God is good and only he can bring beauty from ashes. Only he can bring double in joy what we endure in pain. Only he can restore and heal our land and give us a new identity. Only he can redeem and give us back what the locust took away. Only he has the power to make whole .
Belief that in his presence my fears are silenced. Because of hardships my soul recognizes He is God and i’m just me. In him I have my being and I’m free to belong and become free with no fear silencing me.
Belief that peace is always available to me, no matter where I am he will always be.
And finally and ultimately belief that I am 100% seen and known; And he still chooses to love me.
I love you friends. May your heart be encouraged.
