Faithfulness

Do you base your faith on what Goes does or who He is? Tonight's Bible study uncovered the depths of faithfulness.

I was recently questioned how I can claim that God never lets you down. After all, how can I explain a handicapped child...or worse...the death of a child? Quite frankly...I can't. But since my eyes have been opened to God's faithfulness...I no longer need to.

At the Leadership Summit, we met a boy who was born without eyes and with a crippling disease that robbed him of ever walking. At two his parents discovered his extraordinary ability to play the piano. This talent grew into playing classical acts and joining a college marching band, playing the trumpet, while his dad keeps formation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qTiYA1WiY8

Darkness fell across the stage...and the spotlight highlighted the piano...where Patrick Hughes serenaded us to Brooks & Dunn - Believe: "I raised my hands, bow my head...And finding more and more truth...In the words written in red...They tell me that there's more to life...Than just what I can see, oooh, I believe." Without a dry eye in the place...we didn't question why he was born this way.

Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways His ways and just as the heavens are higher than the earth so are His ways higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.

Quoting from Beth Moore: "What about those times when God does not work according to your requests or expectations? What about those times when He obviously allows your loved one with cancer to glorify Him through restoration in heaven and not on earth? What happens to your faith when a child dies? If your faith is based on what God is doing, you are in for the scariest ride of your life. We will rarely be able to perceive God's actions, though they will always and ultimately be wonderful. They are beyond our earthly understanding. In the times when He seems inactive, He may be accomplishing more than ever! You see, a "what God does" faith is really not faith at all. Although it is focused on God, it is still born in the realm of the obvious, or that which is seen.”

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

Genuine faith is based on who God is. Tonight we were left with a thought...often times we are all for God changing our circumstances...when God is all for changing us.