It’s About Faith {Part 1}

From the title of this blog post you can probably guess what God has impressed on my heart lately. It’s the power of faith and its importance in our lives. I am planning to release two blog posts because after I wrote what I’ll share in my next blog post, God reminded me about something I wrote last year that I never shared with anyone. It has been saved in the notes on my phone and I honestly had forgotten about it…but God didn’t forget. I think when I wrote those words that He gave me, it wasn’t the time to share them, but the time has now come. I couldn’t really combine these two blog posts that God gave me because they share different reasons as to why faith is so important in our lives. But I believe that they are both so important and I know that God wanted me to finally share these words with you. I pray that they minister to your hearts and encourage you like they have encouraged me the last few weeks!

The Lord led me back to a verse we’ve all probably read many times, but He gave me such revelation of this scripture! It totally blows my mind how God can just one day reveal something to you that you’ve never seen before in His Word! He truly is such an awesome and gracious Father! The scripture is in John. Before I share this scripture, I will preface it by saying that it is the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. But that’s what happened at the end of the story…the part that God revealed to me is closer to the beginning of the story, and it’s found in John 11:15. In this verse Jesus wasn’t talking to a large group of people. He was talking to His disciples. This is a key point of the revelation God gave me. The verse says: “And for your sake I am glad I was not there; it will help you to believe (to trust and rely on Me)…” This is the revelation God gave me concerning this scripture:

There is purpose in the pain we face in life. There is purpose in the trials and fires of life that we have to walk through. Ultimately, the purpose is so we can trust God! You see, with each trial that we walk through in our lives something happens during it…our measure of faith increases! The harder the trial…the hotter the fire, the more our faith in God increases! “It is for our sakes” that we walk through the fires of life. It certainly does not feel like it’s for our benefit, does it? It seems cruel, hard, and harsh. It seems unfair! It seems like we’re being punished, doesn’t it? But I am sure it felt like Jesus was being very cruel and heartless when He delayed his stay in a whole other town instead of rushing to His sick friend’s side. God told me something about this scripture and this is what He told me: “ The disciples were My followers. They left everything to follow me, yet they still had to have their faith increased. The people who walked on earth with the very Son of God…who witnessed many miracles up to this point still had to have their faith increased. How much more does your faith need to be increased?” There was purpose in Lazarus’ death and there is purpose in the trials we face in life! They increase our faith!

You see, it didn’t appear that Jesus had a plan when Lazarus was sick, did it? To everyone around Him it didn’t seem like He had any plans, right? As I said before, it didn’t seem like Jesus even cared that His very good friend was sick because he chose to not immediately leave the place he was and run to Lazarus’ side! But, that was so very far from the truth! John 11:4 says: “When Jesus received the message, He said, this sickness is not to end in death; but (on the contrary) it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through (by) it.” This declaration confused people. I am sure they thought Jesus was going to go directly and heal Lazarus…because that’s what makes sense in our human minds, right? That’s what we would do, right? But Jesus’ plan was so much bigger than that! He had to prove to his followers exactly who He was! He had to build their faith! God revealed to me that it was because He knew exactly what they all would have to endure once He ascended to Heaven. He knew the persecution and the rejection they would face and He knew their faith in Him had to be solid so they would not waver when it counted the most!

So, a situation that appeared to everyone around Him to be met with very little care by Him was in fact, cared for and planned meticulously for just that moment! You see, no one knew His plan…they were just looking at the fact that He knew Lazarus was sick. They heard Him say it wouldn’t end in death, but then He delayed His trip and didn’t immediately rush to Lazarus’ side to offer healing to him. All the appearances screamed that Jesus didn’t have a clue what He was doing, right? I mean if we were there like the disciples were, we probably would have thought the same thing! In fact, we think the very same things when we are faced with trials and fires in our lives, don’t we? We “look” at the facts and when we don’t see God moving how we think He should…or it doesn’t look like He’s even moving at all, we have to appear to God as the disciples did! Very confused and frustrated, right? What we have to keep in mind is that the trials and fires we face in our lives were known and even passed through the very hands of God before they ever touched our lives, so we can trust that He truly does have a plan and a purpose, and it will prevail! In the mean time though, He’ll be doing what He did with the disciples, He’ll be building our faith!

Last year God gave me a revelation on verse 4 and it was this: Jesus knew the ending before it ever happened. He knew what the friends and family of Lazarus would face. He knew the heartache and the grief they would face, but He also knew the glorious ending they would witness! And He knows our glorious endings, too! Absolutely nothing takes God by surprise. He knows the very end at the very beginning of our stories! He does have a plan!

There is purpose in the pain that we go through in life. One of those purposes is to build our faith and I believe the other purpose is so that we can help others who suffer similar situations. You see, something happens in the fires of life…we get this empathy for people that we didn’t have before. When you see someone walking through a similar fire you’ve walked through, your heart literally breaks and you can’t help but share with them all the things you learned in your fire. You find yourself saying, “this looks and feels impossible, but God will take this situation and redeem it! He will restore it! Take heart!! It won’t always feel this way!”

I said this before, but it’s so true that I think it needs to be repeated. The refiners fire is a hard place to be in life. It hurts and it’s so very difficult walk through…but something happens in that fire. God purifies us. He shows us more of Himself. He proves Himself faithful and when He does, it builds our faith in Him. We have to have faith! In fact, the Bible says that, “without faith it is impossible to please God…” So, God graciously builds our faith in Him. It might not be easy or pleasant…but when you reach the other side of the “valley of shadow of death” you see something; you see your own growth. You see just how much that fire changed you. You see just how much God increased your faith and pruned away things that didn’t need to be there in the first place. You see His goodness. You see His graciousness. You see His faithfulness. You see more of His heart and you know you’re closer to Him because of that very fierce fire!

I hope you’ll join me next time when I share the other revelation God gave me last week concerning the importance of faith in our lives. ☺️