Does Your Faith Have Skates?

-
“Just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith without doubting that you will receive. For the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like the rough seas driven and tossed by the wind. You’re up one minute and tossed down the next.” ‭‭James (Jacob)‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭TPT


‬‬ Here recently during many conversations, with myself or otherwise I’ve found myself remembering and repeating aloud what my former pastor said one Sunday morning as I sat in the choir stand listening. He was teaching about why we as Christians are all over the place allowing our thoughts and circumstances to carry us to and fro. My pastor basically told us we’d taken off our shoes of peace and traded them for skates. He said “ Stop trading your peace for skates. Every time you look you’re easily carried off, pushed off, or you skate off to another direction that’s void of peace”. 

 s I’ve been bought back to that sermon from five years ago I asked God “what are You trying to tell me what are you trying to show me”? I wasn’t expecting what came after that question nor the visual that accompanied the answer. I asked and He answered by giving me a visual of one of my favorite childhood cartoons, I mean God CAN and WILL use anything right? The Lord bought to mind the t.v show Inspector Gadget. I thought, really God and then I was led to episode after episode of the cyborg inspector calling on everything to get him out of danger by saying “go-go gadget ...” and whatever gadget he called on came out to aid him in getting out of danger. However, none of them were of actual help to him; especially someone who was accident-prone and a bit absent-minded. He always had the right idea but it never seemed to completely gel for flawless execution.
 As I thought how foolish he looked in one episode skating through a wedding and ultimately crashing into the wall and almost completely destroying the event, God spoke. I was mid-thought saying “look at this fool” when God interrupted and said “this is how you look when you trade your shoes of peace and allow yourself to be carried off into every direction due to misperceptions, circumstances, and the failure to FULLY believe AND trust what I’ve said. As I sat with my mouth open knowing full well I do this I got another visual to look up the shoes of a Roman soldier who’d be dressed for battle. As I researched images as they related to the "Full Armor of God" scripture in Ephesians 6:15 I saw that the shoes had spikes on the sole to keep the soldier firmly planted as he navigated the tough terrain. The Amplified version of Ephesians 6:15 says “and having strapped on YOUR FEET THE GOSPEL OF PEACE IN PREPARATION [to face the enemy with firm-footed stability and the readiness produced by the good news].” ‭‭ It says we are to be prepared to STAND with peace to face the enemy. It doesn’t say get carried away with what if’s and why me’s; it clearly says we should be firmly footed but the only way to do that is to STAND STILL in peace.
 When I read that I thought how many times did my faith wane because I based it on my circumstances or put my faith in the thing/object of my affection rather than in the living God who causes ALL things to work together for my good. God is not a circumstantial God. He NEVER changes and neither does His love for us. We are the ones who hop in and out of love with him, halfway trust him, barely believe him, and fake our faith in him like we are at some after school double-dutch meet. God beckons us to trust that He’ll heal us like He promised even when things seem to take a turn opposing that truth. He calls us to count on Him instead of counting what’s left in our account. He desires to expand our limited minds past our circumstances if we would put all of our weight on Him. Trust Him in faith assured with the peace that ALL things are working together for our good.

Dear Heavenly Father, a lot of times I run on autopilot and forget my sincere need for You until You let me reach the end of my rope. I no longer want to live this way. I no longer want my peace predicated on my circumstances being conducive or my relationships falsely filling me. I want the assurance that when I give you ALL my burdens you CAN and WILL take care of me. Once You have given me the directives and strategies I will rest in knowing You will make good that which you promised. Here Lord, here are my skates, they don't fit anymore... I will gladly trade them for Your shoes that will allow me to walk in peace. Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes Words Just Stick

-
“You will say the wrong thing if you talk too much— so be sensible and watch what you say." ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭10:19‬ ‭CEV “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”. I remember singing that as a child when someone would say something mean to me. It was supposed to be a way to act as if what was said couldn’t hurt my feelings. But sometimes words just stick. No matter how old we are we have the potential to carry the scars from words that were spoken to us. Truthfully, words can and DO much harm. Sometimes, what is being said was intentionally malicious and other times it could have been true but it was said without love. Then there are times when what’s said is spoken flippantly because the person is “just talking”. If we’re honest we can see ourselves in one if not all of these scenarios as well as on the receiving end.  I can remember 2 instances in particular in my adult life that caused private heartache and questioning if I had s
Read more

Life Beyond the 🌈🌈 Rainbow

-
 “So Noah went out, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days]. Every animal, every crawling thing, every bird—and whatever moves on the land—went out by families (types, groupings) from the ark.” GENESIS 8:18-19 AMP “The Lord promised to do many good things for Israel, and he kept his promise every time.” Joshua 21:45 CEV I felt like I was holding my breath waiting for the lines to come up on pregnancy test I’d just gotten from Walmart. I was anxious so I got the one you could get an early result. I mean I had all the symptoms and just needed to be sure I couldn’t wait another 9 days. I anxiously got to day 6 and figured I’m gonna go ahead and take the test the pregnancy levels HAVE got to be high enough by now. For the sake of laughter at my foolishness, the test said: “5 days earlier”... NOT 6! As I sat alone waiting, the Holy Spirit said: “just wait”. Of course, I didn’t, I drank 32 ounces of water so I
Read more

Can you Handle being in the background

-
Can you handle being in the background? Galatians 1:10 GNB Does this sound as if I am trying to win human approval? No indeed! What I want is God’s approval! Am I trying to be popular with people? If I were still trying to do so, I would not be a servant if Christ Can you Handle being in the background and not being seen? That’s the question that God posed to me one day while I was cleaning up after my boys for what felt like the millionth time that day. I answered after hearing that question like “come on God YES, I am at home with my boys, aren’t I? I haven’t been in the corporate workforce since May 28 th , 2015. You know I am good with that”.   I thought that conversation was over but if you have ever had a conversation with God, you know that’s likely to not be the case. Later that night I was in the shower and He showed me the ways that I wasn’t comfortable being in the background. The things he showed me I thought were innocent enough and totally not out of o
Read more