Easter

He's Always Been Faithful

Days like today I like to reflect on how faithful God has been to us in the past. You see, our Christian faith is easy to live out when everything is going fine and dandy and it is also easy to live out when things are not IF you believe that God is faithful and He always keeps His promises. God wants us to persevere as Christians. He doesn't want us to just praise Him when all is well; He wants us to praise Him when things are in an uproar (see James 1:2-4 and 1 Peter 1). He gave us His Word so we could learn how to love Him, serve Him, and glorify Him no matter what the circumstance. He gave us glimpses into the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Joshua, Paul and so many others so that we could see things don’t always go the way we planned BUT He has a plan despite what goes on in our lives (as a result of sinful human beings, a fallen world, or just for no other reason than it was God’s plan (see Job) ). He gives us examples in Hannah, Abraham and Sarah, Elizabeth, Moses, Mary and so many more that “nothing is impossible with God” (see Luke 1:37, Genesis 18:14).

Not only did God give us examples in ordinary people’s lives, He also gave us words of wisdom and comfort; some spoken through prophets and teachers, some from the mouth of Jesus himself. In Matthew chapter 6, a portion from “The Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus tell us that we should seek His Kingdom First and then all these other things will be added unto us. These other things are all the things we need in life (food, clothes, shelter, etc. (see the rest of Matt. 6)). He comforts us in Philippians 4 by reminding us to Rejoice in the Lord, don’t be anxious about anything, God will give us peace! I could go on and on about how God gave us His word to be beneficial to us to help us in time of great need or in times of joy. The Bible is useful to us in everyday life for ALL things, what a blessing that God has given it to us. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”

On top of the Bible we also have our experiences to look to. God has been faithful in the past and He will be again. At this particular point in our lives we have a lot of unexpected bills. We have doctor bills, adoption bills, car repairs that need to be made, heat pump that needs to be repaired or replaced, broken x-box, etc. It would be so easy to get discouraged, give up, say “this is too hard, we can’t do it” BUT we have our faith in God, the Bible and our past experiences to remind us. God’s got this, He’s got it all, it is in His hands. About 6 years ago we were in the midst of filling out adoption paper work, we had a car that kept breaking down and costing us hundreds of dollars to fix each time it broke down. I made around $16,000-17,000 a year and I was the primary bread winner. The car finally had its last straw and died completely. We didn’t have the money for a new car, we were trying to save for an adoption! Long story short we got the car. Very shortly afterwards we got the baby and an adoption that cost about what I made in a year. But guess what; God had this, He had it all under control. Nope, we couldn’t afford a car, we couldn’t afford an adoption, But God could! He took care of it and we had the adoption paid off in less than a year and the car paid off in that year too (we even bought a house and adopted another baby within that year (the baby was a little more than a year later but just about 13-14 months)! God has it all under control. Once again here we are hopeful to get a baby soon and we have all these crazy bills coming in that we didn’t expect. Once again I know God is going to show us Who is in control! It certainly isn’t us!

Hope that no matter what you are going through now, good or bad that you are able to “Rejoice in the Lord” knowing that it is because of Him you are where you are right now!

Thanks for reading; writing is therapeutic for me! J