Special Treat! Enjoy this guest blog post from my seventeen year old daughter.
Last Sunday, I woke up to severe stomach pains. I couldn’t get up or out of bed and ended up at Williamson County Medical Hospital. Despite my distress, it was clear from the six ambulances, one middle-aged man suffering from an abrupt heart attack, and the projectile vomiting elderly woman at registration that there were many other more afflicted individuals that morning who were similarly seeking emergency help! It was clear that their needs screamed for far greater attention than my own. My sister Jessica, Dad, and I ended up in the waiting lobby for over three hours. My stomach seemed to settle with each passing wheelchair and bloody patient. Ultimately, we ended up leaving before being able to be seen by a doctor.
The next morning I was sitting in bed reading from what’s called “Spirit of Prophecy" (a daily devotion via email) when I came across this line: “Much of your spiritual function has been fueled by hope rather than faith and trust in me.” Though the passage’s words tend to resemble what you would find on the inside of a fortune cookie, the quick daily devotion has never failed to hit the bulls-eye of my heart, and the morning I read this was no exception. The second my brain had computed the last syllable of this sentence, my internal radar went off with loud bells and whistles. It struck me. I did not have the faith and trust I thought I had in Jesus.
Maybe that sounds like an exaggerated conclusion to come to from a phrase out of some email, but I knew that God was speaking to me. I was terrified Sunday morning because I had no idea what was happening. I wanted answers, and the worse the pain got the more unsettled I became.
The tears began to flow without my control and my heart raced as I conjured up a million possibilities of what could be happening to me. I had so many fears of death and a lack of control. I had abandoned any faith of God’s hand over my circumstance and resorted to the devil’s all too accessible panic button!
I had never considered that my faith was mainly a mere hope in God.
God does give us hope. It is one of his promises to us, and without hope we couldn’t have faith. In Hebrews, He says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen...”
Jesus gives us hope to fuel faith, the assurance of the fulfillment of his word without our clear, human, understanding of all that may mean and lead to. I’ve been hoping in God, hoping that all my prayers and requests will be met. My seventeen year old mind had not given much thought to the chance of something bad and unplanned --like going to the hospital-- actually happening. I had only prayed in hope for the situation to be avoided, however, not fully believing in faith that he would take care of me in the midst of trouble.“I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2 ESV)
When I was in all my pain, I hoped God would take care of me, when I should have put my lack of understanding and fear aside in faith, resting in the knowing…an assurance that he had the whole situation under his perfect control and would take care of me.
If you have only been hoping, but not truly believing in God to take care of you, don’t let the enemy strip you of the fullness of a life in faith any longer. Instead, allow God to use the uncertainty of life to reveal himself to you as a true and faithful father. Storms are bound to roll through, but when they do, remember what God has promised --that He will, not, that He might.”
Written by Bethany R. Mathias (Honors High School Journalism student)
