Wednesday, March 2, 2011

How Can I Believe in God?


People ask me all the time how I can believe there is a God.  I suppose they expect me to question it because I have Cystic Fibrosis.  How can there be a God that allows you to suffer like that?  The truth is that whether I believe there is a God or not would not change my circumstances.  If I didn’t have my faith then I would be walking through this life the same way as the rest of the world, bitter and broken.  I have never questioned God’s existence.  I know that I have been blessed to suffer for Christ.  Through my suffering His glory can be revealed.  One of my favorite verses is John 9:3 “It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins," Jesus answered. "This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”  With or without God I suffer, but even though God allows me to feel the pain I also have the hope that the pain won’t be wasted, that the fight is worth it, that I will overcome it, and that despite the worst pain imaginable I will still be filled with Joy! 

So I ask you, why wouldn’t I believe in God?

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

I Believe It, Do You?


As I was sitting in church last night I began thinking about charismatic faith and what that would look like played out in my life.  I believe in God and I believe in what He can do, but sometimes I am afraid to claim it as boldly as I should.  I have heard it a thousand times, but it was the one thousand and oneth time that it finally hit me.  God doesn’t need me to defend Him.  All He asks is that I believe.  Claim it and believe it and trust Him to do it.  If I truly do that with the most sincerity, I will be healed.  I have been afraid to proclaim that God can and will heal me in fear that if He doesn’t, somehow I would diminish the name of Christ. 

I used to tell myself that God hasn’t healed me because the people around me don’t believe it.  That they wouldn’t know how to accept it.  I thought that I just wasn’t raised in the right church, I didn’t have the right people praying, I need to go to where God is moving.  God is everywhere and can work through anyone.  What a naïve thought process.  It is not my job to worry about anyone else believing it.  There heart isn’t for me to change.  God didn’t ask me to save them or change them.  He asked me to sacrifice my life for Him to use.  That I can do. 

God is going to heal me.  I am not afraid to claim that.  Whether you believe it, pray along side me, or write it off, God will do it.