Hi Faith Travelers!
Happy New Year & Happy Faith Friday!
It’s the last Friday of the first month of a new year and honestly speaking, midway through January, I felt like I was in the same very hard 2025 season, even with “the new year” having already started. It felt as if I was stuck in a new year but with old perspective, old disappointments and old trials and tribulations still weighing me down.
Have you ever been in a difficult space, season or circumstance that you felt like God wasn’t present in? You endured trial after trial, heartache after heartache, and disappointment after disappointment and yet you wondered, “Where are you God?!”…
God is Still With You
In the midst of those seasons, it can sometimes be difficult to pull your own self out of that pit. You find it hard to recall God’s promises in His Word. Promises like “…He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you (See Deuteronomy 31:8) or the promise that “…the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (See Joshua 1:9). Even one of Jesus’ names, Immanuel, means “God with us”(See Matthew 1:23). It’s right there in black and white, yet you still “feel like” God is not there.
God is Still Bigger Than Your Feelings
Notice the number of times I used the word “feel” or “felt” in the beginning of this blog, even from my own perspective. Feelings may be a current fact in that moment of toughness but it’s not the truth…Your Faith Is. Feelings can be defined as “an emotional state or reaction or an irrational belief”. Feelings are temporary and fickle emotions driven by the circumstance, yet Faith is enduring and active trust in God even when the circumstances seem contrary.
God is Still Working
There’s a message that I heard recently when I was still stuck in my “feelings” and the pastor said, “I can Trust God even when I can’t trace Him”. Think about that for a minute. I can put my reliance, my confidence and my dependence on God, His character and His promises even when there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of Him in my circumstance, based on my mere carnal understanding.
God is Still Faithful
Let’s take a look at the Book of Daniel in the Bible (See Daniel 3). In chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar had made a decree that whenever symphonic music played, everyone had to bow and worship the golden image of him and if they did not, they would be thrown in the fiery furnace. Well Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego were Jews in service to the king, who only believed in and worshipped the true and living God, so they refused to bow and worship any other gods. The King was angered and set to throw them in the fiery furnace. He asked them “who is the God who will deliver you from my hands”. They said to the King,” If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”(See Daniel 3:17-18) Notice the “But if not“; they had full awareness of the situation they were in with no line of sight of how things would end, yet they still put full confidence and trust in the God they served even though they couldn’t trace HIM in that very moment of being sent to their death.
The story continues with Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego being bound and thrown in the fiery furnace. When the King looked in the furnace he saw four men loose, walking around in the midst of the fire, not hurt and with the form of a fourth man looking like the Son of God.(See Daniel 3:23-25)
God is Still A Promise Keeper
In moments like those we sometimes expect God to save us before the trouble starts. We often come up with ways of how we think God will or should bring us out of a fire when sometimes His Way (See Isaiah 55:8-9) of doing things is bringing us through the fire not smelling like the smoke we’ve been in, so that He and He alone can get the glory.
God is Still A Deliverer
The three men walked out of the fiery furnace with no evidence having been in a fire. King Nebuchadnezzar praised the true and living God and made a decree for all the people to worship the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego because “there is no other God who can deliver like this”. (See Daniel 3:26-30)
God is Still God and God is Still Good
I’ll leave you with a permission to shift your perspective moment. The next time you find yourself in your own fiery furnace circumstance or situation. Shut down the Feeling surrounding the circumstance and activate the Faith that is needed for you to remember and trust that God is God and He is Good. He is everlasting, omnipresent, has infinite supply, and can do immeasurably more than we can ask, think or imagine (See Ephesians 3:20). Most importantly He loves you and His plans (See Jeremiah 29:11 NLT) for you are always good.
Until the next Faith Message…
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