Faith

   
     One of my favorite things is the sea. When we
lived in England we were so spoiled. Every morning
we woke up to the sound of seagulls in Hooe. That may annoy some people, but I loved it! We were a walk away from the water and we loved to sit up on the grassy hill at Jenny Cliff and watch all the sail boats, or stroll down the pier at Mt Batton... Elijah's favorite thing was paying a pound and taking the water taxi over to the Barbican for the best fish and chips in. this. world! Such fun memories of the sea.
    As much as I love watching the sea when it's calm and peaceful, there is also something fascinating about the sea in a storm. The waves tossing, toppling over and crashing so fiercely... is absolutely captivating. I could watch it all day. I sometimes feel like the stormy sea is a perfect metaphor for what is going on in my life. One moment I feel so strong, so confident, so capable of all that I have been called to do...then the smallest thing can happen and my confidence unravels...my strength turns to fear and all I can see are my inadequacies. How can my heart be so easily swayed? Every day I see more and more just how great my need is for a Savior. The second that I take my eyes off Jesus, I begin to drown.

    James 1:5-8 & 12 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him as God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." 
    In that moment of crises I have a choice. I can look up and seek the Lord for His wisdom and understanding and then trust and believe with faith that He will provide the wisdom that I need to handle the storm....OR I can look everywhere but Him, I can look at my inadequacy, my hurt feelings, my pain, my lack of wisdom, my lack of control over the storm and ride one wave after another...until I get to the first and best response...look up. I am gonna get there eventually, wouldn't it be better to just seek Him first...and prevent myself from flailing around and swallowing all that water in the meantime?
     God requires faith from us. Not just in the big things, in all the small things too. I may be able to manage the small things on my own, but what if I didn't just manage...but thrived. Every trial, big or small measures our faith. Our response to the trial either proves that we have faith, or we don't. When I am being tossed about by lifes trials, what is that saying about my faith? It's easy to have faith when everything in the world is right, but does it hold up when my world shatters? Our trials are opportunities to see our faith in action and to see God at work in every part of our lives!

       1 Peter 1:3b-9 "...According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while , if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious then gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." I love these verses for a number of reasons, but they really put things into perspective for me 1. The trials are temporary 2. God is using the trials to build my faith 3. The outcome of my faith is salvation - a little dose of eternal perspective and my trials aren't as big as I thought they were...because God is bigger.

       I have trials every day. Some days they are bigger than others... but there are opportunities every day for me to look up, ask God for wisdom and trust Him to give me all I need for what I am facing!  There are days that I fail and stress and fret and cry and get overwhelmed... and there are days when I look up all day, talk with God through it all, trust that He has got me in the palm of His hand and live my life accordingly... whether I fail for a day or do everything right, I don't stop trying, pressing in, reading his word and striving to have a faith that brings Him glory....especially through the storms! "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been built on the rock." Matthew7:25

David, Elijah, Hopey and I at a castle right on the sea in Devon, England