2 Corinthians 5:7 (AMP)
For we walk by faith [we regulate
our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting
man’s relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor;
thus we walk] not by sight or appearance.
Wow..."But God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things which are mighty: the foolish things of the world
are meant to confound the wise!" (1 Corinthians 1:27) Boy,
am I FULLY understanding this more and more as I walk with Jesus! We
think we know God when things are COMFORTABLE and things are the way we would
prefer them to be. But, we REALLY don't get to KNOW God until we have nothing but Him to lean on...Shoe leather FAITH where we have to truly WALK it out with every uncertain step.
Be careful what you pray for because what you THINK you are praying, will usually not manifest the way you thought. God's ways are above our ways, and I'm realizing this the more I walk by FAITH and not by what things LOOK like.
We humans seem to think we can imagine something, but by the
time God puts His Precious Touch on it, it's always bigger and grander than we
can ever imagine. What we prayed for will usually come by way of PRACTICE to get us
where God wants us. We think it's going to be SMOOTH sailing because we PRAYED
about it; however the complete opposite usually happens from what our finite
minds can imagine. We want more favor…God TEST us to let us see what our
RESPONSE is to the little things in life. We get to see if we can be TRUSTED with the
BIG FAVOR that He wants to give us.
Oh, yes God wants to give you what you want as soon as you
request it, but are you MATURE enough to handle it? We are just like the 14
year old boy who wants to drive, but he's not mature enough to handle the
responsibility that comes with driving. So he has to wait...watch others do
what he wants to do, read up and learn the laws that go with driving, take a
written test to make sure he knows the rules, PRACTICE what he knows intellectually to
get the HANDS-ON-EXPERIENCE that gives him a BETTER understanding, and
then the BIG DRIVING TEST to be eligible to drive alone.
God is holding our hand a little more in the beginning of
our FAITH journey to eventually allow us to be less supervised because we've
proven we are TRUSTWORTHY to go along without Him instructing us as much. We
are GROWING up when we have stayed close to Him enough that we KNOW His
Character even when we don't hear Him instructing our every step. Thank God
He knows when to take the training wheels off our bike of FAITH to test us for a while to help us know we are mature enough, responsible enough, and READY to
ride without them!!!
