Walk by faith
These days, in Christian circles, you hear so much about doing things "by faith". Living by faith, walking by faith, and the list goes on. But what does it really look like when you put these things into practice, and how does living by faith truly impact and change your life?
One of the most powerful examples over the last few years for me in regards to faith-based living came from a job I was doing at the beginning of 2014. I was making good money but I was not at all happy. I began to sense a stirring in my spirit telling me that 2014 was to be spent living by faith, and that it would begin by me taking a leap of faith into unknown territory. The Rhema word of God came to me and told me that I could leave my job whenever I wanted and that I could also stay there and keep working at it if I chose to do that, but I was going to be miserable if I did. The interesting part to note here was that God told me I could leave whenever I wanted yet He didn't tell me what I would be doing afterwards.
I attempted to stick it out at my job but it just became harder and harder until I got to the point where I simply said "I've had enough of this. Staying here is just not working. I need to follow God and take a leap of faith." So I handed in my resignation at work, still with no idea what I was going to do next or where the money was going to come from. Let me make something very clear at this point - Romans 10:17 states that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." I had already heard the word of God for my situation - telling me that I was free to leave my job whenever I wanted - therefore I was able to have faith that what I was doing was the right thing. Taking a blind leap and doing this sort of thing without first hearing the word of God would not be taking a leap of faith - that would simply be stupid. But I knew God had spoken so even though I couldn't see the outcome, I was doing the right thing.
I need to explain a bit more of my background here. I am Scottish by nature so I am naturally rather thrifty - plus I had been in major financial poverty over the last few years before I got the job that I had at the time, so it was very hard for me to just give this up. I had always feared not having enough money and all of a sudden I was being forced to come face to face with that fear by throwing away my one source of income at the time with nothing else in the pipeline to financially sustain me. Those first few weeks were quite terrifying at times and I constantly switched between feelings of "Oh no what have I done" and feelings of "I've done the right thing, something will work out". This was really faith in action - leaving something and going to nothing, with nothing to go on other than the knowledge that I was doing as God had told me to do.
Shortly after resigning, doors did open for me and I found myself doing an internship with a church in another city. Throughout this time God impressed upon me that I was to be giving $30 a week out of my student income (less than $250 per week) which left me with enough to cover rent, some food, and petrol - and that was about it. However the challenges did not stop there. Two pieces of electronic equipment that had served me faithfully for years and were used on a regular basis - my computer monitor and my guitar FX board (which I used when I played on the church worship band) both decided to die during the year and therefore needed replacing. My landlady at the time told me a story about how she was a student and was living on even less than I was and that she was now in a high paying job and owned her own house. She said to me that "If you want to be blessed financially, God will first make you go without." I was discovering this to be true.
Despite the very tight financial situation I was in, God continued to provide. Money often arrived from unexpected sources throughout the year and I learned to live on the small amount I was earning quite well. But the most important thing was that my fear of lack was being purged and I was learning to live by faith - seeing that God could and would provide when needed and that He would never leave you without what you needed. The time of living by faith began drawing to a close earlier this year and even the small income that I had dried up yet now for the first time I was not afraid and finally stopped worrying about not having enough - because I looked at my non-existent bank balance and realized that I was still getting by. Once my fear had been fully purged, God blessed me with a full time job that I've been doing really well at for nearly 8 months now. I am making more than I have in the last 6 years. I am now able to truly enjoy what I am earning because it is built on the right foundation of faith. I learned that even if you have a lot, if you fear losing it all the time (as I used to) then you may as well not have anything anyway because it's not really a blessing to you. A foundation of fear will rot away at the inside of even the highest and most glamorous structure. Now that my fear has been purged I can enjoy the much larger income I have that much more, as my security is now in God and not in finances - plus, I'm able to save so much more because I had learned to live on so little.
Over the last few months me and my wife also saw another amazing example of God's provision when it looks like nothing is happening. We were blessed with a living environment shortly before our wedding with lovely Christian landlords who lived on top of us and although it was small, it was an amazing place for us and the ideal living situation to be in during the start of our marriage. In April this year I felt strongly impressed on my spirit from God that our living environment was going to change and therefore not to get too comfortable in this place. A few weeks after this our landlord came and saw us and told us that the house would be going on the market. Our immediate response was to start frantically looking for a place to live - an exhausting and utterly fruitless exercise that dragged on for months. We saw living environments that looked ideal yet they would disappear before we even got the chance to apply for them.
Time went on and eventually the house sold and we were given a move out date of the 19th of September. Our move out date got closer and closer yet nothing happened and we began to get quite fearful. God gave us the word "last minute" but even so we still found it hard to trust. Out of desperation we went to look at a flat that we both knew wasn't suitable for us, but we went anyway as we were getting desperate yet as soon as we got there we knew that it was not the right place for us, so we said no without anything else on the horizon. We knew we were right in saying no as the place was small, grotty and very far away from where we both worked plus we had a strong lack of peace in our spirits about it. We knew it would have been wrong to choose this place as it would have been chosen out of fear and we wouldn't have been happy there yet despite the fact that we were only a few weeks from when we had to move out of where we were, we did our best to fight through the fear and trust that God had somewhere better for us.
Four days before we had to leave we visited a place we had heard about through a mutual friend. It was a huge house (more like a mansion) where we would have the whole bottom level to ourselves, yet we could use the rest of the house if we wanted to. The bottom level alone was 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and far more space than where we were - plus it was in a really nice area of the city and the landlady was Christian. It was even closer to work than our previous living environment. Straightaway we said we would take it as we knew in our hearts that this was where we were meant to be. I often look back on this situation in awe. I think of what we came so close to choosing out of fear and desperation - a small, grotty, inconvenient place - and what we ended up with because we waited for God's best and refused to settle - literally a mansion. If we had given into fear, not trusted our spirits and said "yes" to the first place we looked at, we would have missed out on the awesome blessing of the mansion we are in now and would have robbed ourselves of happiness and God's best for us. We are aware that we may have to move again in the not too distant future but we are no longer worried as we have seen the amazing way that God came through for us in terms of providing us with more than we imagined or expected so we know that wherever we go next - God has got it sorted already.
My challenge to you is this - how many times have you lost out on God's best because you rushed ahead and chose something for yourself, only to end up unsatisfied? Is God calling you to live more by faith and to trust Him for everything instead of trusting yourself and the things around you that you think that you can control? What is holding you back from truly following Him? I am more blessed now than I have ever been and I honestly believe it would never have happened if I had not taken that first step of faith and chosen to spit in the face of fear by taking a leap into the unknown with nothing else to go on, other than the fact that God had told me to. If God is calling you to live by faith and follow Him - you have two choices. Ignore Him and stay where you are, but leave the issues God wants to address in your heart unresolved which will create a wrong foundation in your life and rob you of the joy of event he things that you do have - or, accept God's challenge and do as He is calling you to do. I'm not saying it will be easy as you will certainly face the giants in your own life throughout this process but with God on your side, as long as you stick close to Him and listen to what He tells you to do, you will make it through and come out stronger and more blessed than ever.
Take care.
One of the most powerful examples over the last few years for me in regards to faith-based living came from a job I was doing at the beginning of 2014. I was making good money but I was not at all happy. I began to sense a stirring in my spirit telling me that 2014 was to be spent living by faith, and that it would begin by me taking a leap of faith into unknown territory. The Rhema word of God came to me and told me that I could leave my job whenever I wanted and that I could also stay there and keep working at it if I chose to do that, but I was going to be miserable if I did. The interesting part to note here was that God told me I could leave whenever I wanted yet He didn't tell me what I would be doing afterwards.
I attempted to stick it out at my job but it just became harder and harder until I got to the point where I simply said "I've had enough of this. Staying here is just not working. I need to follow God and take a leap of faith." So I handed in my resignation at work, still with no idea what I was going to do next or where the money was going to come from. Let me make something very clear at this point - Romans 10:17 states that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." I had already heard the word of God for my situation - telling me that I was free to leave my job whenever I wanted - therefore I was able to have faith that what I was doing was the right thing. Taking a blind leap and doing this sort of thing without first hearing the word of God would not be taking a leap of faith - that would simply be stupid. But I knew God had spoken so even though I couldn't see the outcome, I was doing the right thing.
I need to explain a bit more of my background here. I am Scottish by nature so I am naturally rather thrifty - plus I had been in major financial poverty over the last few years before I got the job that I had at the time, so it was very hard for me to just give this up. I had always feared not having enough money and all of a sudden I was being forced to come face to face with that fear by throwing away my one source of income at the time with nothing else in the pipeline to financially sustain me. Those first few weeks were quite terrifying at times and I constantly switched between feelings of "Oh no what have I done" and feelings of "I've done the right thing, something will work out". This was really faith in action - leaving something and going to nothing, with nothing to go on other than the knowledge that I was doing as God had told me to do.
Shortly after resigning, doors did open for me and I found myself doing an internship with a church in another city. Throughout this time God impressed upon me that I was to be giving $30 a week out of my student income (less than $250 per week) which left me with enough to cover rent, some food, and petrol - and that was about it. However the challenges did not stop there. Two pieces of electronic equipment that had served me faithfully for years and were used on a regular basis - my computer monitor and my guitar FX board (which I used when I played on the church worship band) both decided to die during the year and therefore needed replacing. My landlady at the time told me a story about how she was a student and was living on even less than I was and that she was now in a high paying job and owned her own house. She said to me that "If you want to be blessed financially, God will first make you go without." I was discovering this to be true.
Despite the very tight financial situation I was in, God continued to provide. Money often arrived from unexpected sources throughout the year and I learned to live on the small amount I was earning quite well. But the most important thing was that my fear of lack was being purged and I was learning to live by faith - seeing that God could and would provide when needed and that He would never leave you without what you needed. The time of living by faith began drawing to a close earlier this year and even the small income that I had dried up yet now for the first time I was not afraid and finally stopped worrying about not having enough - because I looked at my non-existent bank balance and realized that I was still getting by. Once my fear had been fully purged, God blessed me with a full time job that I've been doing really well at for nearly 8 months now. I am making more than I have in the last 6 years. I am now able to truly enjoy what I am earning because it is built on the right foundation of faith. I learned that even if you have a lot, if you fear losing it all the time (as I used to) then you may as well not have anything anyway because it's not really a blessing to you. A foundation of fear will rot away at the inside of even the highest and most glamorous structure. Now that my fear has been purged I can enjoy the much larger income I have that much more, as my security is now in God and not in finances - plus, I'm able to save so much more because I had learned to live on so little.
Over the last few months me and my wife also saw another amazing example of God's provision when it looks like nothing is happening. We were blessed with a living environment shortly before our wedding with lovely Christian landlords who lived on top of us and although it was small, it was an amazing place for us and the ideal living situation to be in during the start of our marriage. In April this year I felt strongly impressed on my spirit from God that our living environment was going to change and therefore not to get too comfortable in this place. A few weeks after this our landlord came and saw us and told us that the house would be going on the market. Our immediate response was to start frantically looking for a place to live - an exhausting and utterly fruitless exercise that dragged on for months. We saw living environments that looked ideal yet they would disappear before we even got the chance to apply for them.
Time went on and eventually the house sold and we were given a move out date of the 19th of September. Our move out date got closer and closer yet nothing happened and we began to get quite fearful. God gave us the word "last minute" but even so we still found it hard to trust. Out of desperation we went to look at a flat that we both knew wasn't suitable for us, but we went anyway as we were getting desperate yet as soon as we got there we knew that it was not the right place for us, so we said no without anything else on the horizon. We knew we were right in saying no as the place was small, grotty and very far away from where we both worked plus we had a strong lack of peace in our spirits about it. We knew it would have been wrong to choose this place as it would have been chosen out of fear and we wouldn't have been happy there yet despite the fact that we were only a few weeks from when we had to move out of where we were, we did our best to fight through the fear and trust that God had somewhere better for us.
Four days before we had to leave we visited a place we had heard about through a mutual friend. It was a huge house (more like a mansion) where we would have the whole bottom level to ourselves, yet we could use the rest of the house if we wanted to. The bottom level alone was 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and far more space than where we were - plus it was in a really nice area of the city and the landlady was Christian. It was even closer to work than our previous living environment. Straightaway we said we would take it as we knew in our hearts that this was where we were meant to be. I often look back on this situation in awe. I think of what we came so close to choosing out of fear and desperation - a small, grotty, inconvenient place - and what we ended up with because we waited for God's best and refused to settle - literally a mansion. If we had given into fear, not trusted our spirits and said "yes" to the first place we looked at, we would have missed out on the awesome blessing of the mansion we are in now and would have robbed ourselves of happiness and God's best for us. We are aware that we may have to move again in the not too distant future but we are no longer worried as we have seen the amazing way that God came through for us in terms of providing us with more than we imagined or expected so we know that wherever we go next - God has got it sorted already.
My challenge to you is this - how many times have you lost out on God's best because you rushed ahead and chose something for yourself, only to end up unsatisfied? Is God calling you to live more by faith and to trust Him for everything instead of trusting yourself and the things around you that you think that you can control? What is holding you back from truly following Him? I am more blessed now than I have ever been and I honestly believe it would never have happened if I had not taken that first step of faith and chosen to spit in the face of fear by taking a leap into the unknown with nothing else to go on, other than the fact that God had told me to. If God is calling you to live by faith and follow Him - you have two choices. Ignore Him and stay where you are, but leave the issues God wants to address in your heart unresolved which will create a wrong foundation in your life and rob you of the joy of event he things that you do have - or, accept God's challenge and do as He is calling you to do. I'm not saying it will be easy as you will certainly face the giants in your own life throughout this process but with God on your side, as long as you stick close to Him and listen to what He tells you to do, you will make it through and come out stronger and more blessed than ever.
Take care.
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