Faith

What do you do if you don’t feel God?

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I am sooooo not good at this Christianity lark! I keep stuffing it up. Wouldn’t it just be easier just to do this all on my own anyway? I mean, how hard is it…This life business? Seriously? Why do I need God in my life? There are plenty of people out there that seem to get on just fine without Him, and yet I struggle. I don’t really feel Him that much anyway, so I might as well be on my own…

“Oh my word”, I can hear you say! Are you shocked that I am writing this? Should I be writing this? I mean, aren’t us Christians meant to show how easy life is once we have Jesus in our lives?

Or, are you nodding your head, with your hands in the air saying “yeah, me too, I getchya!” Are you one of these people that’s been there, done that and got the holes in your jeans for the amount of times that you’ve been on your knees begging for His mercy to start over again?

Do you know what though? Yeah, life isn’t easy. In fact, life is damn hard at times! So hard that it goes through my mind if all this is worth it one day. All the struggles we have in life…

death…

illness…

money…

kids…

…just to name a few! I’m sure that you could add a few more to the list.

Wouldn’t it be nice though if life was just that little bit easier? Answer me honestly. When you’re going through each day in pain and not knowing what is causing it…or you barely have the energy to play with your kids properly…or you are worried about when the next pay check is going to come in and whether you have enough to get you through the next day.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all this would just go away? Is God really here anyway in all of our struggles? When I am facing these hard seasons, this is what I honestly think. How can God let me go through the situations that I experience. Does He really care about me?

A friend recently gave me some encouragement at a time when I needed it…at a time when I still need it…

“I just want to encourage you that just because you are in a hard season right now, it doesn’t mean God is absent. God’s love “feels” more intimate when things are going well, that’s true, but our circumstances aren’t an indicator for God’s love in the same way our feelings aren’t always telling us the truth.”

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I want to encourage you right now too, just like I was encouraged. In answer to my question, “what do you do if you don’t feel God?” Hang in there.

If you feel like your faith is fading, God is there and He will remain faithful towards you. Although we may change our commitment towards Him from time to time, His commitment to us will never change.

 

 

Faith, Five Minute Friday

Alone…But Never Abandoned

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You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “abandon”.

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I’ve just finished watching “Miracles From Heaven” and it has left me filled with a sense of hope. I’ve had my own miracles, which I have shared here, but as time goes on, and life goes on, and different situations happen, the miracle seems a little bit further away.

Anyway, the film is about a little girl who has a very rare and incurable disorder. Her mother hopelessly tries everything possible to see if there is a cure for her daughter, but there isn’t. No doctor can help her.

There are a few things that stand out to me in this film. Firstly, that the mother who is frantically trying everything possible to help her daughter is probably feeling abandoned and alone, and that God is not there with her. After all, why would such a loving God let a little girl suffer?

What stood out to me more though was the faith of the little girl. She knew that God was with her, right by her side, and that if she was to die, she was not scared. She knew exactly where she would be going. That is faith.

I often feel that my faith gets tested on a daily basis at the moment. I have constantly not been feeling well for the past 18 months with one thing or another, and quite frankly, I’m getting a little bit fed up with it!

Faith gets tested…in many ways…and when faith is tested, sometimes the feeling of being abandoned creeps in.

Where is God at times when I need Him?

Why am I going through this?

Why is He not answering my prayers?

Is He actually here with me?

God is all around us though, and seeing this film reminded me that He is here, and it’s in the little miracles that we see every day…

Creation around us…

The goodness that we see…

The people we love…

He has not abandoned us.

Faith, Five Minute Friday

Created for a purpose

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The definition of the word purpose is “the reason for which something is done or created, or for which something exists.” When something is created, it is created for a reason…a purpose.

Sometimes when something is created though, it may take a while to figure out how to use what has been created for its sole purpose. Sometimes, the thing that has been created, has been misused in some way and it is left with marks. This doesn’t mean to say that it still cannot be used though.

I have a potato peeler that has been used so much that it fell apart. I have managed to bind it back together though with tape and I still use it. It doesn’t look great, but it still works…and still does the job that it was created to do.
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I believe that God created me, therefore He created me for a purpose…for His purpose. But sometimes when difficulties happen in our lives it is hard to see what that purpose is, especially when we have been marred. For a long time, because of the abuse that I suffered, I didn’t believe that I could be used for anything. I had been damaged, so why would God use me?

I have learnt though that in whatever situation happens, if I keep my focus on Him, God works through it and will use it for His purpose. He did not create the situations that I had to endure, but He did create me.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Faith, Five Minute Friday, Rest

Slow Down And Take Five

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If you have children, are you constantly saying the same thing over and over again, but they just don’t listen to you? Do you ever tell them to slow down and take five?

My kids have so much energy and are always rushing around from one thing to the next. I’m constantly telling them instructions that need to be done.

Please pick that up…

Please watch where you are going…

Have you done that yet?…

How many times have I asked you?…

We’re not too dissimilar to our children though when our Heavenly Father is trying to constantly tell us something. We are just too caught up in what we are doing and what is going on around us.

I am always too busy. Sometimes so busy that I don’t notice what is going on around me. I miss the smaller details in life that could, and would, make a whole heap of difference in my life.

This week, I prayed to God and asked Him to show me something…anything! So, I have been intentionally looking out for signs. The one constant theme that has been running through things that I have stumbled across to read, or listened to on the radio, was the word listen. For me to listen clearly though, just like I tell my children, I need to slow down and take five!

 

You have just read a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week.  This week the word is “slow”.

 

Faith

Who is in control?

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When someone offers to help you, what do you do? Do you…

a) Say thank you, but no thank you. I am perfectly capable of doing this all on my own. I mean seriously, do you think I can’t do this or something?

b) Say thank you, but then moan about the support you get because it’s not how you would have done it.

c) Say thank you, but then feel so worthless because you couldn’t do it yourself in the first place.

How would I answer?

Honestly?

Probably all three.

I have to be in control. Why? Because I need to know what happens…how it happens…and when it happens. I need to plan in my mind every eventuality that would take place in every situation. I don’t like not knowing what is going to happen…or not happen as the case may be.

Maybe this stems from my childhood…not knowing when my abuser was going to turn up and what “game” he would play next. Or, not knowing what I was going to face the next day at school with my “friends” in the playground. Or, not knowing if what I had achieved was ever going to be good enough.

For me, there are so many different aspects as to why I have to be in control.

Control is about self worth in one aspect.  I feel weak if I let people help me. And if they do help me, I don’t feel worthy of receiving the help (this is the part where I don’t like myself so much…so why should God love me…and therefore why should I let Him help me). Letting other people help will also show my inadequacies and that actually I’m probably pretty rubbish at what I do.

This is what the Bible says though…

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I am trying hard to hold on to this  I’m not perfect though, which leads me on to the next aspect of why I have to be in control…

Control is about doing something well and doing it perfectly. As a perfectionist, giving control over to someone else who does things differently to me is not the idea of being perfect. I have such a hold up about the way people do things. It is not how I would do it. Does this make it wrong though? In reality? No, it doesn’t

Also, if I let someone else take control, they will either get it wrong, let me down or create more stress for me. Or will they?

How someone else does something may not be how I do it, but ultimately we both end up in the same place, but we just took a different route to each other. Does it really matter how we got there?

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As for letting God take control, well, that’s a completely different thing altogether. Not knowing what His plans are is the hardest bit, and trusting Him with my life? Well, that’s a whole new ball game altogether! Trust and faith play a key role in letting Him do His stuff, and when you’ve had a past like mine, it’s hard to let go.

But, I think the main thing is that I am trying.

 

Encouraging hope in a broken world

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