I remember someone I used to work with saying he decided to become a Christian and walked away from his family’s religion, but he had to hide it from his parents. Their knowledge of him doing this would create chaos and potentially his family disowning him. But he took the decision, even in secret. I’m not sure where he’s at with his faith now but that’s beside the point.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. There has to be an assurance. You have to be convinced in your mind of what you are hoping for. The challenge is to guard it against the words and works of people that cause you to doubt, question and surrender that assurance. They make you think that what you hope for is vain, foolish, unrealistic, uncertain. They present an alternative and say: “hope in this.” But hope that is seen is not hope. Who hopes for what he sees? If God has put something in your heart, and another word comes, will you give up what you’ve been promised--- to remain comfortable in a place that you are supposed to leave?
Hardship and opposition come to uproot your assurance. You can’t stand because you’ve been convinced to uproot the assurance that you have. You’re convinced to surrender your ground. But you can’t change your life rinsing and repeating, skirting around, hiding, choosing the same paths that have no glory---only mundane comfort. Is it comfort if you’re not comforted by it? The point is not to choose hard things. You’re not in this life to prove a point. But you are in this life to walk the path that God has purposed, even if you don’t know where it leads, even if it leads you to being alone for a while, even if it separates you from your kin.
Why does God say: “do not fear, for I am with you.” Separation sometimes brings loneliness. Faith in God doesn’t bring many cheerleaders. I’ve certainly experienced a shocking occurrence, whereby even those in the faith cannot always stand with you because the matter is beyond their level of comfort. Your assurance has to be immeasurable and deeply rooted in who God says He is. When He asks, “Is there anything too hard for me”, you must pose the same question back to him amidst all the opposition that you face: “God, is there anything too hard for you?”
In my life, I’ve gone against my better judgement too many times, and it’s only me left with regret and no peace. I’m forced to recite that all things work together for my good, knowing I chose a direction I didn’t want. And for what?
Your assurance has to be deeper than the logic and the will of man. Your assurance has to reflect that: “no word that comes from God will fail.” It must reflect that “with God, all things are possible”; it has to reflect the God who calls forth things that are not as though they were.”
Assurance: confidence or certainty in one’s own abilities.
Have confidence and certainty in the ability of God, who can produce life from a dead womb. Yes, He creates nothing from something; He creates something where no life exists, where our science says there’s nothing that can be produced in a place that is dead.
Your faith must be in God’s ability. What you hope for requires God’s ability, not the confidence of man. Have faith in God’s ability to bring to pass what you are hoping for.
There are companies that were built whose ideas, in their infancy, seemed foolish, and a waste of money, resources, a futile attempt. There are decisions that sincerely arouse the same sentiments. And when you are led by God along this same path, it’s only later that many will understand what God is doing. In the beginning, you can’t see how or why, but it’ll become clearer, by and by.
Your faith needs to rise a little higher, beyond merely believing that this thing or that thing is possible. If your faith doesn’t mature past this, time will swallow up your belief. People will cause you to take decisions that don’t reflect God’s good, pleasing and perfect will. You’ll forever be coerced by challenges, inconveniences, pressures, and difficulties--- things meant to perfect your faith, not compromise it.
Faith in God and trusting that He will bring you to your expected end brings safety. No matter how fearsome the opposition is, God will see you through to your expected end.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews12:1-2
