To Walk By Faith and Not By Sight
When I rededicated my life to the Lord in my late teens, I began what seemed to be a lesson a year. First it was love - God began to teach me how to love with His love, to see with His eyes, as I prayed for it. The next year was faith, and the following faith and trust. It wasn't like I picked these to work on - love was what brought me back to Him - a breakthrough from my friend Taylor W. - and faith and trust have always been struggles, partly because I like to understand things, and partly because I've never learnt to trust deeply, easily.
Faith, as you know if you live by it, is a walk in trust. The two, though different, are deeply and intimately connected. To walk by faith is to walk in trust, and to trust fully means utter and complete faith.
One of the joys of following Jesus has been to see His love through different aspects of my life - as I like to say, "God's love is of the same beauty and diversity as a many faceted diamond."
First, I learned His love through parent-child relationship - with me as the child, obviously.
Next, was His intimate love as a wooer and lover, as my best Friend through the lonely years when my life turned upside down and, more recently, in the traumatic last three years of abandonment by the man I loved and my supposed "friends/family group" in the US.
I learned how He could love the dirty and the societal/Christian "unforgivables"; how He could bring in strength when emotional and physical strength was gone. I've seen Him through wonder and laughter and tears, in the baby sparrows and in the vast sky, and how He could love someone so small as me and make me so big.
And most recently, marriage.
My husband and I haven't had the easiest start to our marriage. (!) He and I often laugh and say that nothing in our lives has been easy. He sees it as a test, a challenge - I see it as a trial, a storm in which the eye is God's peace and...well, the end is Heaven? :)
We began dating in September, September 17th; we talked to my parents about the possibility of marriage around the middle/end of October. He proposed to me on November 28th and we were married in a beautiful ceremony on March 5th of this year. (If you want our love story, ask. I want to write it up some time anyway. :P)
Within three days of our honeymoon, we had the stress of his marriage Visa kick in. (If you think I'm a worrywart, he can stress as bad as me. :D) He'd had a job offer lined up since the end of February, but his company wanted us to try for his marriage Visa before they'd attempt a work Visa. Once that was approved (thank God!) on April 11th, he left my workplace (where we met) and began his job in London on the following Monday. Now, you may not think Britain is particularly big, but when you get up at 4:30am, leave at 6:30am, get into work at 9am, work until 5:30pm, catch the 6:20pm train, reach home by 8:45pm and be in bed for 10pm, every day of the week, it suddenly becomes enormous. With the travel strain and the financial cost of the ticket (£1062.60!!!!), we decided it would be best for him to stay in London and come home weekends - or when his shift starts, to work the four days and come home the four days he's off.
Well, my head decided. My heart didn't.
I'm too emotional. :P Always have been.
I was really grateful last night - and today - for the Bible verses my parents made me memorise as a child, and those that I've learned since. Praying as I was trying to sleep in tears, two came to mind:
"...and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b (NASV)
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee." Isaiah 26:3 (KJV)
But still, tears and quiet depression today. Which of course isn't making my poor husband feel any better.
I text him earlier: "...I was just saying I trust you to do the best for us, even if all I can see is the present." (With my head; it's still getting to my heart. :P)
He replied: "Yes, and I'll always do the best for us. Sometimes it's hard in the present, but if you think about futuristically, you'd see the benefits."
When we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, He instantly becomes all the things I mentioned earlier - Husband, Father, Protector, Keeper, Shield, Lover, Closest Friend, Brother...etc. It takes a lifetime of knowing Him to even start to understand all of the ways in which He relates to us in the perfectness of His love.
He is our Husband Who has gone to prepare a place for us - Atul has moved to London to try and gain experience, more money to provide a better life for us and any future children we may be blessed with in the future.
He always does the best for us - even though we can't see it. And how often can we!
I feared the breakdown of communication with Atul away - he calls me three times or more a day, texts me, Whatsapps me, to reassure me that he will stay, he will come back.
God also communicates with us, while He is away - through His Word, the never-changing, never-failing Bible. He has told us, "In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going." (John 14:2-4, NASV) As we wait for His return, we communicate with Him through prayer and song.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," the old saying goes. I find that absence increases doubt and fears, which have to be conquered by faith, trust and communication. We choose where our hearts go and what they dwell on - and that is the only way to grow the "fondness".
In these last days, our love for the Lord has grown cold. We do hear people say, "“Where is the promise of His coming?" (2 Peter 3:4a, NASV) We prefer the comforts of life and the joys of the now to the dwelling on the distant and invisible. We hate to be scorned and hold our heads down to avoid the mockery of living by faith. (That's me, too, by the way.)
When I fear Atul will go, when I remember how brief and short our lives are, I think about the memories and his promise.
I know the Lord won't leave. And maybe that is a reason why I hold His promise and the memories of His grace so lightly.
I messaged Mama Lauser the other day, asking how she was. She replied, "Learning to trust the Lord again." I thought, Again? Is there ever a point where we rest completely in Him without falling back? And I guess not. (Thank you, Mama. That was encouraging in a strange way. :))
Trusting God.
Trusting my husband.
Learning to trust again. I guess that is the lesson for this year, still. And forever.
In Him alone do I stand,
~Siân~
Faith, as you know if you live by it, is a walk in trust. The two, though different, are deeply and intimately connected. To walk by faith is to walk in trust, and to trust fully means utter and complete faith.
One of the joys of following Jesus has been to see His love through different aspects of my life - as I like to say, "God's love is of the same beauty and diversity as a many faceted diamond."
First, I learned His love through parent-child relationship - with me as the child, obviously.
Next, was His intimate love as a wooer and lover, as my best Friend through the lonely years when my life turned upside down and, more recently, in the traumatic last three years of abandonment by the man I loved and my supposed "friends/family group" in the US.
I learned how He could love the dirty and the societal/Christian "unforgivables"; how He could bring in strength when emotional and physical strength was gone. I've seen Him through wonder and laughter and tears, in the baby sparrows and in the vast sky, and how He could love someone so small as me and make me so big.
And most recently, marriage.
My husband and I haven't had the easiest start to our marriage. (!) He and I often laugh and say that nothing in our lives has been easy. He sees it as a test, a challenge - I see it as a trial, a storm in which the eye is God's peace and...well, the end is Heaven? :)
We began dating in September, September 17th; we talked to my parents about the possibility of marriage around the middle/end of October. He proposed to me on November 28th and we were married in a beautiful ceremony on March 5th of this year. (If you want our love story, ask. I want to write it up some time anyway. :P)
Within three days of our honeymoon, we had the stress of his marriage Visa kick in. (If you think I'm a worrywart, he can stress as bad as me. :D) He'd had a job offer lined up since the end of February, but his company wanted us to try for his marriage Visa before they'd attempt a work Visa. Once that was approved (thank God!) on April 11th, he left my workplace (where we met) and began his job in London on the following Monday. Now, you may not think Britain is particularly big, but when you get up at 4:30am, leave at 6:30am, get into work at 9am, work until 5:30pm, catch the 6:20pm train, reach home by 8:45pm and be in bed for 10pm, every day of the week, it suddenly becomes enormous. With the travel strain and the financial cost of the ticket (£1062.60!!!!), we decided it would be best for him to stay in London and come home weekends - or when his shift starts, to work the four days and come home the four days he's off.
Well, my head decided. My heart didn't.
I'm too emotional. :P Always have been.
I was really grateful last night - and today - for the Bible verses my parents made me memorise as a child, and those that I've learned since. Praying as I was trying to sleep in tears, two came to mind:
"...and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b (NASV)
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee." Isaiah 26:3 (KJV)
But still, tears and quiet depression today. Which of course isn't making my poor husband feel any better.
I text him earlier: "...I was just saying I trust you to do the best for us, even if all I can see is the present." (With my head; it's still getting to my heart. :P)
He replied: "Yes, and I'll always do the best for us. Sometimes it's hard in the present, but if you think about futuristically, you'd see the benefits."
When we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, He instantly becomes all the things I mentioned earlier - Husband, Father, Protector, Keeper, Shield, Lover, Closest Friend, Brother...etc. It takes a lifetime of knowing Him to even start to understand all of the ways in which He relates to us in the perfectness of His love.
He is our Husband Who has gone to prepare a place for us - Atul has moved to London to try and gain experience, more money to provide a better life for us and any future children we may be blessed with in the future.
He always does the best for us - even though we can't see it. And how often can we!
I feared the breakdown of communication with Atul away - he calls me three times or more a day, texts me, Whatsapps me, to reassure me that he will stay, he will come back.
God also communicates with us, while He is away - through His Word, the never-changing, never-failing Bible. He has told us, "In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going." (John 14:2-4, NASV) As we wait for His return, we communicate with Him through prayer and song.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," the old saying goes. I find that absence increases doubt and fears, which have to be conquered by faith, trust and communication. We choose where our hearts go and what they dwell on - and that is the only way to grow the "fondness".
In these last days, our love for the Lord has grown cold. We do hear people say, "“Where is the promise of His coming?" (2 Peter 3:4a, NASV) We prefer the comforts of life and the joys of the now to the dwelling on the distant and invisible. We hate to be scorned and hold our heads down to avoid the mockery of living by faith. (That's me, too, by the way.)
When I fear Atul will go, when I remember how brief and short our lives are, I think about the memories and his promise.
I know the Lord won't leave. And maybe that is a reason why I hold His promise and the memories of His grace so lightly.
I messaged Mama Lauser the other day, asking how she was. She replied, "Learning to trust the Lord again." I thought, Again? Is there ever a point where we rest completely in Him without falling back? And I guess not. (Thank you, Mama. That was encouraging in a strange way. :))
Trusting God.
Trusting my husband.
Learning to trust again. I guess that is the lesson for this year, still. And forever.
In Him alone do I stand,
~Siân~
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)