Today's Devotional

February 15,  2006

 

Subject:  The Fear To Faith Cycle: The Decision To Trust

Job 39:11-12 -  "Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?  Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"

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So a storm of life hits us and we're initially plunged into despair.  We hope that it will soon be over, but then it simply just continues and the pain goes on and on.  Those are the first two stages of the Fear To Faith Cycle.  It's at this point that the Christian believes that he or she is beginning to grow numb to what is going on.  In reality, what is happening is that this is usually the point where we make our decision to trust.

In Job's case, as he entered this phase, he began to question God about why all of this was happening and what was going on.  That's fine with God.  He can handle our doubts and ignorance.  In fact, He desires that we come to Him with our questions because He sees our hearts searching for Him.  So in Job's case, as in ours, God begins to answer.  His answers always have the same theme; "so are you going to trust me or someone/something else?"

In this stage of the Fear to Faith Cycle we're not out of the situation that we were in, but it now appears that the valley isn't so deep and we actually believe that God can bring us out of it.  A friend of mine wrote me about this series and she put it best when she said, "God has given me a much calmer spirit" about these situations.  That's what he does at this point.  We normally begin the F2F cycle on an emotional roller coaster.  We are shocked by the occurrences.  Then we try to think or pray our way out of the situation.  Finally, we simply choose to go with God on it and He sends in "The Waterboy" to refresh us.  We have made a decision to trust Him.  We now see a way out, but there is still "A Hill To Climb."  

Carlen