No Faith Chia Pet

Have you ever watched a kid in a candy store? So many choices. "What will I choose, what will I choose?" That's the question of every child with money in his pocket standing in the candy store staring at all the choices. Now, consider the parent whose child is in the candy store with money in his pocket. The parent lets the child make his choices, may even let the child buy everything that he can pay for on his own, possibly lets the child eat one piece of candy, but probably won't let him eat it all in one sitting. Why? There are several reasons. One being that it will make the child sick. Another reason might be that it's almost time for dinner. A third reason may be that the parent doesn't want to be up with the child all night long. The list could go on and on as to why the parent doesn't allow the child to eat it all in one huge gulp. The point, is that the parent knows best and overrules the child's desires and wishes and says "no."

Is God like that?

Consider for a minute.

You have a smorgasbord of options, desires, and wishes, which one, or ones, will you choose? Are they all "right" for you? I guess that depends upon your point of view. Your point of view might be different from your mother's point of view. Your mother's point of view might be different from your spouse's point of view. Your spouse's point of view might be different from your boss's point of view. And God's point of view might be different from them all.

We were discussing prayer for healing and victory over diseases last night, when my mentor cautioned me. She said we need to have faith in God and not faith in faith. Talk about blow-your-mind, not really sure what that means. So I asked her about it. Well, I'll confess that before I asked, I allowed myself to get into a tizzy trying to figure it out on my own--that didn't work. So, then I asked her about it. What does that mean? She said a lot of things, but the most important thing--or at least what finally made it make sense to me--is what faith in faith does.

I told her that I've been reading a lot of books that all said that if we had "faith enough" we'd be able be healed, to heal, and pretty much--in essence--to take care of whatever was needed. I said that it made me believe that if I wasn't able to do any or all of those things that I didn't have enough faith. She said, "Where does faith come from?" Our faith comes from God. When God allows us to go though things, those times or circumstances will grow our faith. But it should grow our faith, or trust, in God, not in how big our faith has become. There is nothing that we can do to "grow" our faith on our own. There is nothing we can do to obtain more faith. There is no Faith Chia Pet. Only God grows our faith. When we pray and believe we will get something--due to the size of our faith--then, in essence, we are saying, "Well, we can do this, God." When we believe that our faith is larger than God--and His Will--then we've brought God down.

She reminded me that there's a difference between God's Perfect Will and God's Permissive Will. 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, "'Everything is permissible for me'-but not everything is beneficial." We have free will. I can choose to do anything I want, but it may not be what's best. I can choose to pray for anything I want, but it may not be what God wants. As soon as I assume that I know better than God, there's a problem. Do you know what the difference between an elephant and an ant is? Distance of sight. The elephant can see much more than the ant. That's the difference between God and us. Sure, we can see a lot, but we can't see everything. Jesus said, "[You] will do even greater things than these," (John 14:12)... But Jesus never acted on His own. Everything He did was for the Glory and in the Will of the Father. When we put faith in our faith, instead of faith in our God, we not only get ourselves in trouble, we can negatively impact others and lead them to doubt God.

I pray that as I move forward, that I will remember that I live not for my will or my glory, but for God's. Thank you, Father, for showing me the difference between faith in faith and faith in You. Father, if I have made any to doubt you, because of something I may have said, Father forgive me and I pray that you would draw them back to you. Lord, as I draw closer to you, help me to discover more of what is Your will for my life, that when I pray, I will stand on Your desires for my life and not my own. Thank you, Lord, for giving me good friends who can teach me and lead me into a deeper relationship with you. It is in Jesus' Name that I pray, Amen.