FAITH-Fully convinced

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Colossians 3:12-13.

“My sheep know my voice.” What matters is that you know the voice of God. The still, small voice of the Lord that can be known and heard by all.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. Romans 4:19.

Trust God. God promised Abraham a son. When Abraham received this word from the Lord, he “considered not his own body now dead (nor)…the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

In the natural, it was impossible for this promise to be fulfilled. But Abraham didn’t dwell on the impossibility. He gave no thought to how God would keep His promise.

A month back, at Mt. Carmel’s Church after the 10:15 am mass on a Sunday, when nearly stepping out I saw this elderly lady, having said hello, I asked her how she was. She snapped back telling me that she fell and doctors have told her nothing can be done. I told her it’s not difficult for God. To which she replied when doctors have told me so it is. A minute into the conversation and I realised this incident that she was referring to happened years before. I felt sad for her. She did not understand that with God nothing is impossible. Having excused myself, I took a step back.  

When God is at work producing a faith that is tried and better than Gold, He first closes the door to all human reasoning, bypassing every means of a rational deliverance.

The faith that pleases God is born in a place of deadness-to all human possibilities. It is a place of helplessness. Have you been at this place of deadness (helplessness)?

If you ask me what life has been to me? I would say God’s grace. As a kid, when my closest friends moved, it hurt a lot. As years pass by and realization dawns on you and you think who needs a heartache? But you know one way or the other, I was meant to have to part from things or people I love.

I keep my distance, but when God permits me to speak I do. I love to talk. And when permitted I speak a lot.

When one is in company, then there is a lot of talking that happens and all talk is never always pleasant. From my earliest years I have felt alone. The closest friends of mine moved to where it would be impossible for me to travel to get to them. I always did wonder, why this happened, why they had to move?

Even the building we live in, has people shifting every five years, at least the first to the fifth, we live on the second floor. So no permanent neighbours.

I realized that it was the way God wanted it for me.

When in school in the third year, I and a classmate (Muslim) were the last two to leave for the day. The teacher asked her why her mother never remarried. She replied, that her mother believed that love is only once. To me that was the first time I heard the word love. Definitely if I understood what it meant, then I have heard it before. But that was the moment ‘love’ impacted my whole life.

As kids, we would visit Mangalore on holidays and be there for a week to ten days. Everyone fussed over my brother. I was non-existent to all of them. Jealousy was never a part of my thoughts. I just wanted to be loved. I had so much love in my heart. I did not know what to do. I went to the Church, I prayed asking God, for someone who would love me and it did not matter if he was blind, deaf or whatever. Just please make him love me the most in the whole world. I asked for the greatest love story in the whole world. I was 9 years. I certainly did not know the implication of what I prayed. But it was at that moment, that I prayed with an earnestness that I can only remember. I now understand.

Silence is the most wonderful thing. I began to realize that in the silence, I could hear His voice. He took away the people that could have been great friends to me. But He gave me HIMSELF.

I hear HIM all the time. There are moments when there used to be silence. There were moments when I did not understand God’s ways. But I always knew He had a reason.

Life has its ups and downs. The Spirit of God urges us to quit focusing on how hopeless the situation is. Those are hindrances to our faith.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need-Hebrews 4:16. Come to God with boldness.

Abraham was “fully convinced that, God was able to do what he had promised.” Romans 4:21.
Consider in Genesis: out of nothing, God created the world. With just a single word, He creates.

When all fails, it is time for us to cast everything to God. Once we are ready to believe, we will see God as a Creator who works from nothing. And, out of nothing, God will work in ways and means we could never have conceived.

We need to believe in God in the face of impossibilities? Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist was visited by an Angel who told him that his wife, Elisabeth, would give birth to a son. But Zechariah who was advanced in years, found it hard to believe.

And Zechariah said to the Angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advance in years” Luke 1:18. Zechariah considered the impossibilities. He was saying, this isn’t possible. Zechariahs’ doubts displeased the Lord. The Angel told him, “And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” Luke 1:20.

The message: When God speaks, BELIEVE!