Rest Assured

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. -Hebrews 11:1 

What does it mean that faith is the evidence of things unseen? 
That there are things that are unseen and the only reason that we know those things exist is because of faith. 

These past few weeks I’ve seen this awesome vision that the Lord brought about called Doors Primary school start it’s second full year of school. I’ve seen beautiful children come abounding into school with joy and relief to be back. And I’ve seen a devoted and passionate headmistress walk through the slum in her high heels and drag those children back to school who didn’t make it the first few days. 

And I’ve seen busyness over every page in my planner. I’ve seen sunken looks on kids faces as I give them snappy answers. I’ve seen beautiful joy exploding out of two friends that spent 4 days in my house and blessed me abundantly. I’ve seen a two week battle with a stubborn child over whether or not he wants to use his mosquito net be resolved with laughter and tears. I’ve seen the death of too many sweet children, and I’ve seen life abounding. 

Our sight is undoubtedly one of the greatest ways that we perceive where we are, who we’re with, and what’s going on around us. What we see with our own two eyes can comfort us, appease our worries, or depending on the situation really freak us out. It’s one of our five senses that we live and perceive by every day. But for the believer, God has given us a totally different sense to live by and that’s faith... 

I rely too much on what I see in my own life every day to determine whether or not I’m being faithful. I’ve been challenged this past week by realizing that when I see the fruit of my relationship with Christ, or see myself having actions that I deem faithful, I feel faithful, and I feel assured that I’m okay. When I wake up and get in the Word before crazy days start, on days when I control my tongue and pray for somebody rather than slander them, on days where I am singing and praising and praying in the Spirit all day long, on days when I am moving with God and I know it’s step by step, move for move --- those days are days where I can see the fruit of my relationship with Christ and in turn I am assured that I’m being faithful! 

But what about the days where that quiet devotion in the morning doesn’t happen? Or the days where I’m questioning God because I can’t see why I am where I am? Or the days where it is so hard for me to love people that I would rather go to the dentist and have a root canal and tell them to go easy on the Novocain? 

What about those days? Did Satan come in with a vacuum cleaner and devour all my faithfulness? The days where I can’t see myself acting in faith or see the fruit of my relationship with Christ...I feel unassured that it’s there. They can make me believe that I am falling away. 

Then there are seasons of walking through the fire. There are seasons of pain and loss. There are seasons of dryness. There are seasons of disobedience. There are all types of seasons that may be days, weeks, months, or years...Seasons where we don’t see our faith, and we quickly divert to measure ourselves as doing wrong, as unfaithful. 

But in Hebrews it says that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith makes God’s promises over us have substance!!!  Faith makes my relationship with Christ have substance! Faith is the evidence of what we can not see! Even when we are looking into our own lives to see if that relationship is there - should we do that? Or should we have faith that the relationship is there and it’s thriving? 

Let’s talk about our own faiths for a moment. So many days when we are in the process of being refined (which is constantly!) we don’t see our faith and we lose assurance and immediately we begin to doubt and question and worry and judge ourselves (when we can’t see our faith we lose faith that it’s there). When we can’t see our relationship with God, we doubt that it’s there and we doubt that it’s working. 

But what God has been teaching me is that He is always tilling the soil and we don’t need to judge ourselves at all. We need to come before Him with meekness - meekness is giving God the power to judge you without defending yourself. We need to seek the Lord for what the condition of our heart is. He is the only one who can ever see the condition of our heart and our Spirit CLEARLY and righteously. 

Upon asking Him to give us a clean heart, to renew our minds, and to love us that very day -- then we need to keep walking and trust Him. Trusting that the condition of my relationship with Him is right, and that maybe I’m not “seeing” the fruit of my faith for the day because really God is teaching me to live by faith. To trust the unseen instead of trusting what’s right in front of me. 

To have assurance that my faith is there even when I can not feel it or see it. 

I’m rejoicing on the days where I’ve come meekly before Him and the fruit of my relationship with God appears to be unseen to me, because I do have assurance that that means that my faith is being faithful. 

I don’t need to see the fruit of my faith. I don’t need to see why I am where I am. I don’t need to see how faithful I am being for the day. These beautiful eyes that God has gifted us with need to be focused on seeing Jesus, and when they are fixed on seeing Jesus that’s all that people are going to see in you too. 

Cleanse your heart and come surrendered before Him and then... 

When you can’t see your faith, you can be assured that you are living by it and it’s being built up every day. 

When you can’t see why you are where you are, you can be assured that it’s because you are relying on God and that His purpose is deeper than what you can see. 

When you are in a season where you’ve been fighting to even feel like you’ve ‘got’ a little bit of God and you don’t feel like you’re doing anything right because you’re not getting an answer, you can believe that you are right where you need to be and that the ways that God is teaching you to trust Him are increasing your dependence on Him every day. 

The mere act of looking to what is unseen causes us to live an undeniably life of faith. Have assurance in that today.

We Remember

Today is our 2 year anniversary of bringing in our eight oldest boys. It’s been two years full of hard work, laughter, tears, frustration, and pretty much every emotion you can have - we’ve all had it. We want to celebrate, we want to rejoice, we want to give thanksgiving to God for all that He has done in our family. And we will, but unfortunately, today has become bittersweet. 

Today we mourn the death of a child that we all knew and loved, Yohaya. 

I didn’t like most of my interactions with this boy. He started doing heavy drugs when he was 6, and now 3 years later he has been suffering from the consequences. He often overdosed and would end up in our home for a few days. His words were always full of anger unless he wanted something. He has bitten me, beat me, and cursed me many a time. He’s made many small trips into our home, where he is showered in love and affection by our boys - his good friends from the streets, and then he would always run away and usually not empty handed. 

Yet, we all loved him deeply. There are few times I have ever seen the war inside of him come to a halt, and see peace overcome. Yohaya loved to color - and I could watch him color for hours as his mind escaped the harsh reality that he lived. A sweetness would come about him, that I have never seen in him any other time. He would proudly show me each picture he would shade, and in a normal 2 day trip into our home, I would have to get at least 3 empty coloring books for him to color in. You could see joy in him. Peace over him. Contentment. This is who Yohaya really was, and we are honored that we are part of the few people that ever got to see him. 

I find myself angry as I think of this little boy’s death. Not at God. God is faithful. This little boy was tormented his whole life. He suffered from abuse, from addiction, from anger, from living on the street, and from the poison that someone fed him that killed him. 

I’m angry because I know that there was something better for him than that on this earth. He never reached it. 

So instead of a glazed-over hallelujah look on all of our boys faces today, I see a righteous anger. I see fiery passion in their eyes. I see determination to dedicate themselves even harder to prayer for the children on the street. I see themselves sitting down on a Saturday and willing themselves to work harder in school and use the gifts they’ve been given to give back one day. 

I see young men that no longer need their lives to be fought for - they are redeemed, sealed, and pressing in to the Lord- but are ready and yearning to fight the good fight of the faith. 

I see young men who are taking the life that Yohaya lost and letting it fuel a fire for God’s righteousness to rain down in the darkest places. 

Yohaya, we love you. You have blessed us.