If you’re at all like me, then you see almost all aspects of your life as winning or losing. Let’s be clear … I hate losing. That’s why I like knowing that God has already won. That puts me on the winning side for the war, but what about winning smaller battles? How can we tell who wins or loses those?
1 John 5:4 (CEV) “Every child of God can defeat the world, and our faith is what gives us this victory.”
According to George Macdonald in At the Back of the North Wind, there are 5 elements to genuine faith: trusting, praying, believing, desiring God’s will, and waiting. Notice these are all action words. Faith must be lived out loud. When we go against the grain and live in faith, the world loses.
What can the world do to us when we trust God? What can the world tell us when we pray to God? Who can discourage us when we believe in God’s complete love? Where can the world lead us when we are desiring God’s will? How can the world rush us while we are waiting on God? Live in confidence, and go against the grain. We can defeat the whole world.
Soo true, and soo good! I did have one quick question though…could you give a bit more insight on “waiting” on God? In what ways are we to wait?
-Thanks Casey
Hmmm, how perfectly this fits into my life. I like it, I love it, I want some more of it!!!! Thanks for sharing.
@Josh, There are two types of waiting:
1. Waiting because I have no choice. For example, waiting till I’m a millionaire to buy 10 cars. I literally don’t have a choice but to wait until the money comes in. It’s just reality and we can’t argue with reality.
2. Waiting when I don’t have to. For example, waiting till I’m 21 to drink alcohol. Although there’s a law against it, there are plenty of ways to drink before I turn 21. Waiting is a choice. If you make the choice to wait, then we call that patience.
Patience is wanting God’s timing more than we want ours. We wait for Him to move when He knows it to be perfect for His purposes.
Now the hard part … It’s between you and God to determine when He wants you to act, and when he wants you to wait. Either way, it’s still an action word because not doing something often takes just as much energy as doing something. There’s no blueprint that lays out black and white for everyone. Your specific color blueprint is only revealed a little at a time during those quiet moments with our Creator when we can hear His gentle whisper.
well said Casey. and I like you beard.