There is a song that is popular by Matt Redman called “Never
Once.” One of the lyrics goes, “Never
once did we ever walk alone. Never once
did you leave us on our own. God, you
are faithful.” This song always connects
with me. I am a worrier and I doubt, but
when I look back over my walk with the Lord, I know he did not once leave me
alone. He has always, always, always
come through exactly as he has promised me.
When I’ve been sure I’ve heard God, I’ve never been wrong about what he
said. I’ve never misunderstood – even though
I doubt.
A great example of God’s faithfulness in the midst of my
fear and worry was when I was dating a guy I knew from college. I prayed about all my relationships, and I
truly believed I was supposed to be dating him, but I also knew I did not want
to marry him. I was in my 20s at that
point, so dating for me was a pathway to marriage, and it didn’t make sense to
me that I’d date outside of that pathway.
I clearly remember praying about my struggle with this particular
relationship, and I heard God say, “I’m not asking you to marry this guy. I’m asking you to date him right now. For different reasons, you need each
other. Do this for me, and I promise the
next guy you date will be the one you marry.”
I stayed in the relationship for only about 10 weeks, but
through it, God showed me so much about his character and his faithfulness. I also saw God work in amazing ways in the
life of this friend, and I am beyond thankful I got to participate in the
process. I’m also thankful for what he
taught me about the Lord. God was right
that I needed him – and that he needed me.
We broke up right before Christmas that year, and guess who invited me on
a date two weeks later? Andy
Speight. We went out a few times,
started dating that summer, and then broke up for six months. During that time, I thought I’d heard God
wrong. I doubted, and I was frustrated,
and then six months later, we were back together and then engaged a year after
that. God was faithful to his
promise. It didn’t happen as I expected
or quite in my time, but he came through.
Even more amazing, nothing I did or didn’t do would have changed the
fact that we eventually married. While Andy
and I were broken up, I cried in my closet, I stress ate, my friends still joke
about how miserable I was. I was
absolutely pitiful, and then I pulled it together and tried to go on other
dates, and now I know that none of it mattered.
God had a plan, and if I’d just found peace in Him, I could have
survived everything leading up to his plan much easier.
In the third chapter of Galatians, Paul is pleading with the
church to understand that faith is all that is needed to see God. Remember, this church is struggling with
Jewish law and whether or not to follow it.
Paul is reiterating that the law is no longer necessary to know God, but
he takes it further to say that it is only by belief that they receive the Holy
Spirit and experience miracles. I love
this verse: “Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by your
observing the law, or by your believing what you heard?” (Galatians 3:5). In verse six, Paul gives the example of Abraham
and says that Abraham’s belief was credited to him as righteousness. The phrase refers to Genesis 15:6 when God
promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations even though his wife
was past her child bearing years. Abraham
didn’t question – he immediately believed.
This type of belief is what struck me about the passage today. What would it be like to be a person who
hears from God and then just believes? Right
now, I’m in the middle of another phase of my life where God has made a promise
and finding faith is difficult. When I got pregnant with Daniel, Andy and I
knew we would want me to quit my job to stay at home with the baby. When I was barely pregnant, I definitely
heard God say, “I want you to remember that I’m still God even if the numbers
don’t add up.” I felt that his promise
was a clear indication that our budget would not look like I wanted it to look.
And it didn’t. But I also felt like God was promising me that
he would work it out, and so far, he has.
I don’t get this right every time, but I know I’m in a season of life
where I can choose to believe God will be faithful or I can sacrifice belief to
work at worrying instead. And I
desperately want to do it differently this time. I don’t want to be crying in my closet or
stress eating or constantly crunching numbers.
Obviously, I have made a budget for our family, and I do work hard to
stick to that budget. But I also try to
choose every day to believe that God will be faithful and to remember that he
has always been faithful. Furthermore, I look forward to the day when God’s
promises are complete and Andy and I are able to see clearly all he has done
for us through this stage of raising children.
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