Misconception of Faith

Questioning God’s plan and purpose for our lives never gets resolved by our own human minds. His ways are beyond what our human minds can fathom and when we begin to doubt, question, compare, and wonder, we allow our sinfulness to take away from His omnipotence.

Isaiah 58:8-9
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We are under the misconception that god reveals all things to us, that He explains in great detail the steps of our lives, and that a faith in Him means a life with no questions, no pain, and no suffering. Faith is defined as a trust in what you cannot see, what you don’t always know, It is a complete trust without question. Faith is a choice, a process, a deep devotion to accepting that there is something greater than that of our selves. Faith is removing our own human logic, our selfishness, our self-edification and giving purpose and power to God who created a universe, keeps that universe on its axis, and created me, just a spec, on the scale of something so much grander and bigger than my own selfish universe.

I feel pain, panic, confusion and often times I feel that it’s God’s duty and responsibility to lift that pain, calm the panic, and bring understanding to my confusion. My God can do all those things, but more often than not it’s my own sin, my own selfishness, my own lack of faith, I am the one that places that burden on my own shoulders. God does not bring the pain, God brings the healing, and He provides the shoulders to carry what we can’t. He asks us to give Him what we can’t understand, what we can’t carry. He says to leave our burdens at His feet. He says to trust Him, to leave them, to let go. We wait around for closure, for understanding—when God says my grace is sufficient for you. When you can’t fathom why, when you can’t find reason, when purpose brings pain—Is God sufficient for you?

When you can’t answer why, do you trust that God knows why and that faith is moving forward when questions and doubt threaten to pull us backwards? We so often pray for direction and so often God answers those prayers and moves us, but yet we drag our feet, we question, we doubt, and we take our faith and turn it into pain. Pain is a miss focus of opportunity—every opportunity is one to trust and to give our faith to God. Opportunity is our way of giving god power but fear and doubt take away from the grace God so freely gives. Pain is fear, fear is doubt, and doubt strips away faith. Faith is a choice; faith is giving to God all that we can’t understand. It is finding opportunity with each breath we take and giving God all praise even when we have nothing left to give of ourselves.

I don’t understand why, but I choose to put my hope in the one who I know works all things to His infinite purpose.