Tag: future

Why Not Expect Prosperity?

image: google images

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

 

I wrote my last post exactly six months ago today and I am grateful to return to it.

God is faithful.

It is now February and the year is flying as quick as I expected but recently, I had to sit with God to remind me what His vision for me was. It is often too easy to forget the amazing image of prosperity that faith gives us as we hope in the Lord.

I must admit, I have forgotten. Even now as I blog, I am waiting on God to put the pieces of that prosperous future image back in my mind.

Indeed, you must see it to believe it.

What is faith if we have nothing in mind of the evidence to be seen? Seeing in the spiritual must happen in order for hope to take root in our hearts as we wait on the Lord on His promise.

So I sat with God for a while today.

I asked Him to remind me again, what I am supposed to envision when I think of my future. In this exercise, it occurred to me that I had become accustomed to the rigid idea of numbering my days so much so that I stopped seeing what was ahead.

I think sometimes we are subconsciously easily crippled by the idea of unexpected disappointment or even tragedy that we relent on the vision of a future not too far from now. I recognized that misplacement of faith today. I wonder if you have been setting aside a hope for the future because you are afraid it may not happen or that it seems too far away.

Faith tells us to wait expectantly. Faith decrees that we pray without ceasing. Faith says to hope in the Lord. But enduring the present times and a heart of perseverance is no easy feat.

That is why we cannot shy away from coming to God as much times as it takes, conversing with God, and pleading that His Spirit continues to fill us up with the hope and expectancy that our faith deserves and that our future needs.

So why not expect prosperity tomorrow? And the day after that? and the day after that?

Why not seek God to reconstruct the future that He promised so we may yet hope for it as we walk toward it?

I pray for you as I pray for myself today. May the Lord of hope continue to fill your mind with the prosperous visions and words of goodness that you need to keep faith alive. I speak life onto the dead bones of our hope and joy in expectancy in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Crawling In Faith

crawling

“If I say, “My foot slips,” Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.”

Psalm 94:18

It is a beautiful and amazing experience for anyone who has ever watched a child crawl for the first, second, third, or fiftieth time. There is much to be said about the glow and excitement in the eyes of a toddler and those watching. There is hope that the crawl will inevitably become a walk. There is joy in such growth.

But the thing about growing up whether under the guidance of God’s word or not, we often forget that we are still children in the eyes of our heavenly father.

See we often tell ourselves to ‘walk by faith and not by sight,’ because to watch a grown person crawl is not always a blissful sight.

Whenever we crawl, it is usually caused by distress or agony of some sort.

Nevertheless, I am plagued by a question today. Why are we so eager to walk in faith but refuse to crawl first in faith?

We have all become so accustomed to the idea of walking in faith, that we have forgotten that crawling in faith should come first.

Could it be that we struggle in our walk in faith because we don’t want to crawl first? Could it be that the decrees of tradition and generation to walk first in faith, has hindered our ability to crawl first in the sight of our merciful Father?

How ironic is it that you are already in position to bow, kneel, and worship when crawling? Is that not what it takes to then build the strength to get up one foot at a time to then begin to walk in our faith?

How do you crawl in faith?

If you are like me, you are in a place, in desperate need of God’s counsel. You are in a vulnerable state of mind, body, or spirit, where you refuse to move unless you see the footsteps of God lightening the path before you.

Friend, in this place, right here. Right where you are. In your desolation. In your solitude. In your frustration. In your discomfort. In your tears. In your confusion. In your waiting. In your mess. In your filth. In your weakness. In your sadness. In your fear. In your uncertainty. In your revelation. In your battle. In your struggle. In your silence. In your cry. THIS IS WHERE YOU CRAWL!

You crawl in faith by looking to your Almighty Father in heaven, seeking him even in the midst of what seems like total dysfunction and chaos in you and all around you. You call on the Name that is greater than all other names.

You utter the words, “Jesus.” You bow your head and say, “Abba Father.”

Your prayer begins with giving honor to the One who can do ALL things for HE created ALL things.

And even if you don’t have the words to say it, let God into your heart, and crawl faithfully in silence to the Father whose arms are always open to embrace you for a job well done even if you don’t know it yet.

I pray today that our Father who art in heaven, whose Will be done on earth as it is in heaven, will give you this day your daily bread, and forgive you your trespasses as you first learn to crawl in faith before you can walk in it, in Jesus name. Amen.