Psalm 27: 13-14—I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.
I didn’t have anything but blind faith and belief.
And sometimes when that’s all you have, you realize it’s enough.
The evidence in my life that I could actually SEE told me this probably wasn’t possible. My parents had neither one graduated from high school so who was I to believe I’d even get into medical school, let alone graduate. There were plenty of naysayers and doubters. How would I pay for it? How would I do it with two kids? Did I really have what it took? It felt like asking to be admitted to a fairy tale and then asking that the fairy tale be true.
But I believed way deep down that God had something for me, that He created me for a reason, and I knew that He would open the right doors at the right time. So I worked and studied as IF IT WERE TRUE. I acted like someone who was going to medical school.
Faith in God is like that to me. It feels so outlandish sometimes to believe it’s true, based on what I can SEE around me. How can He love us when the world is so harsh and brutal? How can Christmas really be true? It sounds like a fairy tale, this Gospel message of Christ’s love.
Your belief will turn out to have been right because it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe in the God of Christmas, the One who comes humbly to offer Himself to the world, the One who saves and rescues us, the One who has done everything to ransom us—then that is the God you will find. You will be invited into the most incredible story ever told.
But your unbelief will turn out to be true too. It will condemn you because you just cannot fathom that this Christmas story is real, that it applies to you in 2017, that the God of the universe stooped down so low to become a babe in a manger in order to usher in the salvation of the world.
Believe and you will be saved. Beg him to give you belief and He will. It is His free gift. Say with the saints of old, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.”
And you will find a God of mercy and love and grace and forgiveness. You will always find what you are looking for. Believe before you see evidence. Believe and wait and God will wow you with His goodness and usher you into his kingdom which has no end. Your “once upon a time” begins today. It’s grander and more glorious than you imagine. Your Prince of Peace has come.
thank you for this.