Thought I’d share today about something I’m seeing in a new way. I find it interesting that now and then, without me researching or reading what others say about a subject, the Holy Spirit will just guide me into a deeper understanding. I pray and He talks back. Ooooh scary. Isn’t this the way the Bible was written? What did the writers of the Bible read? Well, the New Testament guys read the Old Testament.. but what did OT guys read? Nothing! Weren’t they just people too, just people with a seeking heart for God? If God spoke to them, couldn’t we do the same thing? It’s cool… I hope you all have those kinds of experiences too and if not, just start praying out loud and then have a time at the end or somewhere in the middle to just be quiet. There’s something to the practice of praying out loud and then “listening.” I used to just pray inside my head. By praying out loud, I often find that still, small voice reach out to me and place a thought into my head which answers or leads me in the subject of which I was praying. When I say I pray out loud, I actually whisper my prayers; I’m not saying you need to voice it to the whole house. It works, try it.
There’s been a couple things I’ve been hearing lately and that’s inspired me to write today. First is faith; I’ve always associated faith with belief but it’s deeper than that. I believe in Jesus, I believe he rose from the dead, yadda yadda. I don’t question whether God is real and I’ve always thought that was faith… and it is, don’t get me wrong. The faith I’m shown now is trust. With this faith I not only have no Plan B, I don’t even have a Plan A. I don’t know how, I don’t try to understand, and I’m not trying to figure it out; I simply pray (out loud) that I trust God to take care of it. I put it out of my mind and don’t wait pensively to see what’s going to happen.
It’s one thing to understand something, to get a revelation or whatever and boom, it’s in your head; it’s another thing to actually apply that next step into your life. That’s the second thing, application. I often hear people say the right thing but don't apply that to other areas of life or relationships. It’s like there’s a disconnect. I’m sure I do it too, it’s a blind spot. I challenge myself to apply my learning; after all, isn’t that why we learn? That challenge has benefited me nearly every time and I encourage you to almost make a game out of it… how can I apply this?
Well, the application of my [trust] faith, is that in dealing with, uhh… every man’s battle… hint, hint, wink, wink, say no more, say no more. Each morning, when I pray, I invite the Holy Spirit into my day and say that I need His help. I admit that I have no power to fight a battle I’m made to want. For you, this could be a battle with food, could be guilt, could be wanting to control people, could be forgiveness of someone who deeply hurt you; it can be applied to anything. Anyway, I admit that no power to fight evil is going to come from me because I’m a man living in flesh. Side note… I believe no good is ever going to come from me; I am no source of any good, ever! Any good in life comes from God; whether that is in my life or I see elsewhere, it comes from God. He is the source, not us.
That said, I do have a spirit that is inside my flesh that has been merged with Christ… with God. Nothing can separate me from God because a bit of him and all of what I was got mixed together and behold I’m a new creation. The old me is gone, never to return again and I am made into something completely new. If God is all-powerful and all dominion is given to Christ, whose I am, then I have the ability to let go.
With my belief faith, I thought of myself like a Jesus battery. When I was fully charged, I could move mountains (according to the Bible); but when life drained me, I was weak and would fall. See the problem with that is the i-factor. I had to be fully charged. I was the one who initiated and maintained the charge. I fought. I lost charge. I failed. I either did good or I did bad. Belief faith totally depended on me. Ha! There actually IS an “i” in the word belief.
Trust faith is totally different (and there’s no i either). Trust faith is like being no more than an extension cord. The power does not originate from me, it only flows through me. The power is not dependent on me; in fact, it exists without me. All I do is plug into it and let it do it’s job. By praying in the morning and admitting that no power for good or fighting evil comes from me, I’m admitting that I’m just a vessel. As a vessel I ask for God to fight the battles that day. My exact words are: “It’s your fight, your victory and for your glory… not mine, so you do it and I trust you.”
Nice words, right? So what happens when I fail anyway? Simple, I let go again. I failed because I fought. Every single time I loose because I revert back to belief faith again. I forget to pray. Not that praying is anything more than me reminding myself of my place; God knows all of this. He sees me trying and that makes him happy (belief); it makes him even more happy when I don’t try and just let Him take care of it (trust). Either way, He smiles on me. I’m not saying that I’m endorsing living however you want, fail as often as you want, live life according to the belief faith. At the same time, I had to understand belief faith before I could understand trust faith. It took religion to break out of religion. I don’t have religion, I am discovering relationship. My point is, either way, I was reaching towards and that will always make God happy. The difference is now, with trust, it’s deeper.
It’s scary, I will admit but it’s also freeing. Isn’t that what Christ said, my yoke is easy and my burden light. In comparison, belief is so much harder, so much heavier than trust. Didn’t Christ come to fulfill the law (religion - a.k.a. belief)? He literally was showing us to just trust. That was every disciples first test; hey, stop what you’re doing and follow me. The rich, young ruler couldn’t do it; he was attached to material goods. Others couldn’t do it; they asked if they could say goodbye or let people know what was going on. That’s not trust, that’s belief.
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