And while I know God was with me all year long and brought us through many trials and given us many blessings and victories, I just feel like I did not come out too much stronger spiritually than when the year began. I'm not saying I backslid a ton or anything, but I cannot honestly look at last January and see a year's worth of spiritual growth. I feel like I just sort of ...stood still.
My daughter Elliana turned 1 last January, and looking at her now, she is so much farther along than she was last year. She has grown and matured so much over the year, but I just can't say I have as much as I could have.
I feel that through all of the trials of the year (my Gramma dying, my parents divorcing, my crazy pregnancy / birth with Joyanna, our ministry, finances, family health issues, etc) that I should have come out with mountain moving faith, but I still have times where I doubt the Lord, His power, His mercy, His grace and His goodness, even after ALL He has brought me through.
Anyways...I like to have a verse of the year and this year I picked Luke 17:5, " And, the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our Faith." I have faith, but I want so much more. So this yeat I am praying for the Lord to increase my faith. Kind of a scary prayer...! But I want that mountain moving faith...
I've had feelings like this often, that I haven't progressed or grown substantially over time...but after what I've learned this year I don't worry too much about not coming out of things spiritually stronger or better...what I've learned this last year is that our relationship with Christ isn't always about becoming a 'better' Christian or having MORE faith or getting stronger. When we received Christ we received ALL of him - He IS our faith, he IS our strength. Often we strive so much that I think we lose sight of the fact that Christ is the embodiment of anything we are trying to be and he is already IN us so we have everything he has; at the moment of salvation, we had arrived at spiritual completion. We already have all of the fruit of the Spirit (including faith) because Christ has them all and we have Christ. There is nothing left for us to do except stop striving to obtain what we already have and start abiding so that Christ can bear that fruit through us. I hope this is great year for you and your family :)
ReplyDeletethank you so much for your comment and your encouragement! you are so right...i guess my desire is just to be closer to Him...to know Him more!
ReplyDeleteBarbie I know exactly what you are saying about a crazy year. If I could go back to last January I could never have even imagined the trials we would go through and how God would bring us through them. I think many of the things that happened to us this year were for our spiritual good. I know at least for myself I have always struggled with having faith. I am by personality a planner, worker, perfectionist, etc. and have a hard time with depending on others and unfortunately many times that has even included God. This year He gave what seemed some almost insurmountable circumstances to get through and with them He also gave me no ability of my own to do anything about them. I believe it was because He had lessons for me to learn. Frank and I had for a long time realized that he really needed to get a job closer to home to benefit the ministry. it was hard enough on the church for him to work a full time job without the extra 3 hours of driving time daily. He had interviews closer to home, but most of them offered at least a $7 hr cut in pay. He was making close to $20hr. We kept saying that we couldn't survive on that. Well guess what we couldn't but God can. He is now getting less that $4 hr on disablity and God has provided in the most AMAZING ways. I said all of this to say Faith is a life long battle and we all could do better, but just continue to seek Him in all you do and you will be amazed how truly strong your faith is when you need it! Love you <3
ReplyDeleteLove Loretta