You are here: Home / Faith

Wouldn’t You Like To Be a Charismatic Christian, Too?

November 14, 2010 By Randy Olds 12 Comments

Pentecost

“Most charismatic Christians are just one major crisis away from a nervous breakdown”, my Missionary Baptist pastor-friend sagely advised me over a decade ago. I had just come out of a year-long relationship with a local charismatic church that touted the “Health and Wealth Gospel” and was in the midst of a faith crisis after I had determined that the pastor of this church was a fraud and that the doctrines that were espoused there were simply not biblical.

After spending a few years licking my wounds from my failed charismatic experiment, years in which I attended no church at all, I sought refuge within the safe confines of the United Methodist Church.

Ah, reason. And reasonable faith as well.

Nobody babbling away in tongues in the pew in front of me. Nobody rebuking the devil if even the slightest hint of oppression was sensed. If I came to church with the sniffles I didn’t have to worry about half a dozen well-intentioned (but in my mind misled and overly wrought) brothers and sisters coming to lay hands on me and pray for healing.

Right!

This!

Minute!

In the name of JESUS!

However, no matter how far I have tried to seperate myself from the enthusiastic and starry eyed faith crowd of the charismatics, they always seem to find me. And yet part of me still has this sense that I am lacking something in my realistic (and sometimes skeptical) approach  to things like healing, gifts of the Spirit, and even Faith. Part of me wants to be a Charismatic Christian, too.

I have read through all of the pertinent scriptures on the Gifts of the Spirit and frankly I still can’t come away with a solid cessationist doctrine. (For those not familiar, Cessationism is the doctrine that all of the supernatural events like tongues, prophecies, and spontaneous healings ended with the first century church)  While I do believe that the “Health and Wealth” Gospel is a false one and I also think that many charismatics are not using their “gifts” in a biblical manner, I simply cannot understand biblically why they should not be available now.

Today.

For me.

Although I am very comfortable in the United Methodist Church, I actually have many more close friends who are charismatics than are Methodists. As the result of my involvement in the Christian renewal movement known as Tres Dias, I spend a lot of time at meetings (I’m on the board of one Tres Dias community) and retreats with Christians of many different denominations. The Tres Dias communities that I am most involved with locally are composed of about 70% charismatics, with the rest being primarily Baptists and a smattering of mainliners such as myself. I quite often see myself as an oasis of reason among the enthusiastic blind faith of my beloved charismatic brothers and sisters in Christ.

And contrary to my friends sage advice of so many years ago, none of my charismatic friends seem to be anywhere near the realm of nervous breakdowns. Even though my charismatic friends will indeed lay hands on a brother or sister with the slightest case of the sniffles and offer “effectual, fervent prayer”, the majority of them do not seem to be too taken aback if the ailment persists. They will simply go through the routine again and again until they sense that a healing has occurred or the sniffles go away on their own (I sometimes wonder however if my friends don’t still claim Victory when natural recovery take place).

Sometimes I find myself wondering if the reason that I doubt is simply because of my doubt. “I believe, help my unbelief!” cried the father of the young boy who was possessed (Mark 9:24). Or how about “But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6-7) Is it my own doubt and skepticism that stands in between myself and greater blessings?

A friend of mine recently asked me if I had ever spoken in tongues. I told him that I was quite sure that I hadn’t, to which he responded, “Have you ever prayed for the Holy Spirit to give you the Gifts”. I had to admit that requests such as those were not part of my prayer life.The fact is that I did “speak in tongues” those many years ago in that charismatic church, but I have long since convinced myself that the experience was “emotionalism”.

But what if the experience was genuine?

Emotionalism is what I often classify most of what I have observed in the charismatic community. Everything from speaking in tongues to prophecies to healings I have often spread under the wide umbrella of  “Emotionalism”. If you believe in something strongly enough, the mind has a nifty little way of making it come to pass.

But is it all emotionalism?

I have heard stories from Baptist and Methodist friends who have been on missionary trips where they witnessed what they could only describe as genuine outpourings of the Holy Spirit. I have a friend who, as a Baptist pastor, has witnessed inexplicable examples of tongues being used in a wholly biblical manner in churches that he visited, where one person spoke and another translated.  I have even heard stories from reliable (and non-charismatic) sources of a person speaking in his native tongue in a foreign land and the audience hearing him in their native language.

In a post last week, Chaplain Mike (another skeptic) related his own difficulties with understanding charismatics. He admits that he ‘doesn’t get it’, yet he posted a link to the revival at the Bay of the Holy Spirit, where Delia Knox was apparently healed from twenty-two years of paralysis a few months ago. I spent several hours investigating Mrs. Knox’s claim of healing (with a very skeptical eye) and simply can’t poke any solid holes in it. I believe that she was indeed healed, as wildly implausible as that may sound.

One of the blogs that I follow is that of Scott Lencke, who is an enthusiastic, yet very reasonable supporter of Continuationism (the doctrine that the Gifts of the Spirit did not cease in the 1st century and are readily available today). He actually has two blogs, and he regularly provides sound exegesis and support for reasons why all of the Gifts of the Spirit are available today. I have yet to find any serious flaws to his approach to charismatic Christianity. (He had an excellent post yesterday on Healing and The Atonement)

Between reasonable information like what Scott (and others) provide and my relationships with the charismatic Christians that have entered my life in the last few years, I more and more find myself questioning my approach to charismatic Christianity. I find myself wondering if the problem is not with charismatic Christianity, but is perhaps instead with me. Perhaps my own skepticism (and self-perceived intellectual superiority) is the problem.

No, I do not expect to ever accept the ‘Prosperity Gospel”, nor would I ever endorse a church full of people all speaking in tongues at the same time. I don’t see myself ever participating in a revival, a la Benny Hinn, either. And I have no intentions of becoming a “there is an angel behind every green traffic light, and a demon in every bush” Christian. None of those things are sound biblically.

But perhaps I should start praying, as my friend suggested, for the Gifts of the Spirit. And maybe start believing that healing is not only possible, but the doctrines behind biblical healing are sound, and therefore not only pray for healing, but believe that it is possible.  “I believe, help my unbelief!”

What could it possibly hurt?

Filed Under: Charismatic Christianity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Learning About God, Prayer

Childlike Faith and Spiritual Maturity in the 23rd Psalm

November 9, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

The last week or two I’ve spent some time studying the contrast between the childlike faith that Jesus urges to have in passages such as Matthew 18:3 and the childishness that Paul and the author of Hebrews chide their readers for in 1 Corinthians 13:11 and Hebrews 5:11-14. In my own walk with God I have realized that there are still elements of my faith that are immature, but at the same time I have struggled to maintain the childlike faith that I began this journey with. How does one grow up spiritually yet still remain as a little child?

I have shared my ruminations with a couple of close friends on the subject and have intended to write on this for the last few days but the clarity that I’ve sought in this matter has eluded me. It has seemed that putting it all together has been right on the tip of my tongue, but I haven’t quite been able to grasp onto it. Last night I spent some time with another friend in our weekly Bible study and once again the topic came up. Something that my friend said about holding onto memories of times where faith was easy and simple and where we received gifts from above with a childlike awe struck a memory of something I read a couple of years ago that pulled it all together for me.

During a study of the Psalms a couple of years ago, I remember the surprise that got when I found out that most of the theologically adept believe that the 23rd Psalm was written by King David not when he was a young shepherd boy, but instead an aging man in the twilight of his life. The imagery of a shepherd boy leading his sheep beside still waters and reflecting how the LORD was likewise leading him had always been in my mind and I had simply assumed that it was the young David in his teens who had penned this Psalm which has comforted its readers for thousands of years. The childlike faith exhibited in this Psalm surely couldn’t have been written by an old man jaded by a lifetime of war and family difficulties, or could it?

After reflection, I realize that the spiritual maturity reflected in this Psalm simply could not have been written by the boy shepherd. The teen-aged David had never really spent any appreciable time walking through the “Valley of the shadow of death” as the aged King who had hid from Saul and Absalom as they sought his life had been forced to do. It took massive failures in his personal life as was exhibited in the Bathsheba debacle to come to the realization that it was God and God alone who was leading him in the paths of righteousness and restoring his soul. It was the as a result of reflecting on a lifetime of instances where the rod and the staff of the LORD had comforted him and led him by still waters that the aged King was able to put those words onto the parchment.

Maintaining childlike faith quite often requires spiritual maturity and the ability to look back to times where we know that God was at work in our lives. It is not that He is not working in the here and now, but sometimes we can get nearsighted and are not be able to see God at work in the present day. It is much easier to look back at the tapestry of our lives and realize that that the LORD has been restoring our souls and leading us along the path of righteousness for His names sake all along. If He was doing it then, surely He is doing it now, and surely goodness and mercy will follow us all of the days of our lives.

That is why we are to “count it pure joy when we face various trials”, knowing that these trials will give us the perseverance that leads to maturity. That spiritual maturity is what enables us to hold onto that childlike faith that Jesus said was essential to enter the Kingdom of God. Not only that, but the faith building experiences of having God lead us out of the valleys and back to the mountain top are times that we can look back on later and once again realize that one day we will live in the house of the LORD forever.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Filed Under: Christian Living, Faith, Psalms, Suffering, Trials and Tribulations

Small Miracles

September 23, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

I’ve said before that I simply don’t believe in coincidences. I once heard someone say that “a coincidence is a miracle where God chooses to remain anonymous”. I tend to think that God interacts in our day to day lives, and sometimes in such an opaque way that we never realize that He was indeed there, shifting an event here or moving a person’s heart there, working and moving in such a way as to take care of His children in ways that we are sometimes blind to.

It is not so much that He doesn’t intervene in our lives in a regular, if not daily basis, as it is that we are often blind to what He is accomplishing behind the scenes. It quite often takes a finely tuned eye and an open heart to be able to see the small things that God does on an everyday basis to take care of us and in so doing build our faith and move us closer to Him.

Now I’m not trying to say that there is an angel behind every green light or open parking space at the local grocer. For the most part I think that God allows the flow of time to run interrupted as long as it is not interfering with His plans.

However, I do believe that God directly intervenes in our lives in order to provide us comfort in times of need, support from our brothers and sisters in the Lord when we are feeling discouraged, and even food and shelter during times of hardship. I believe that He purposely closes doors that we are not meant to walk through, and then opens the appropriate window for us to go through to find ourselves back within His perfect will for us.

Of course, it is up to us to go through the doors that He opens, and it is also up to us to seek to discern the areas that He is working in our lives in these supernatural ways. I’m not saying that mere coincidences don’t happen. I just tend to think that for those who call upon the name of the Lord, those coincidences are quite frequently no coincidence at all, but are instead the direct intervention of a loving God who wants to shower us with reassurance and His unfailing love.

This evening I was privileged to hear a heart-warming story from my best friend up in St. Louis. My friend has been going through a series of trials, and last week found out that his company is denying his workman’s compensation claim for a serious injury sustained on the job. A couple of days later, his wife’s unemployment benefits unexpectedly stopped. There are a number of other trials that he has been enduring over the course of the last year that I won’t mention here, but suffice it to say that he has had a very rough last couple of months.

Yesterday, he took all of these things before the Lord and laid them at His feet. Then, over the course of the day, he had an amazing sequence of events that could only be God’s intervention in his life, both to provide for him as well as to provide him assurance that, yes, God was listening and taking care or things.

First was an unknown woman at a grocery store with an “I Love Jesus” t-shirt who struck up an unsolicited conversation with him and then  related to him all of the trials that she had endured and that how, in every instance, God had taken care of her. My friend then returned home to find a modest sum of money in his mailbox that will see him through for the short term. As he walked up to his door, there was a food basket sitting on his porch with an envelope containing a small amount of money, but promising an additional $500.00 if he was willing to take part in a survey.

I am just hitting on the high notes here; there was a lot more that went on in my friends day that I don’t have the space to relate. The point is that we are both convinced that God stepped into his life on a day when he needed God the most, not only providing for his needs, but also giving much needed hope.

I think that if it were anybody besides a close friend relating this story that I might have been a bit skeptical. I’ve seen the “prosperity” preachers spin yarns that made me simply roll my eyes. However, I have no doubt about my good friends story.

I’ve had similar days. Days where the coincidences were so uncanny that it could be nothing less than the hand of God intervening to provide hope and to meet my needs at times when I needed Him the most.

The skeptics and atheists will scoff and find any reason imaginable for such turns of events. Anything except for the possibility that God does get involved in people day to day lives. Perhaps it is because of their spiritual blindness, or maybe God simply doesn’t do things like that for people who don’t call upon his name.

Whatever the case, I do know that God has every hair on my head numbered and that, when He sees fit,  He will swoop in and alter the events in my day to day life to take care of me and my family as well as to bolster our hope and faith. He might not bring fire down from heaven like He did for Elijah, but the small miracles that He does show me from time to time are every bit as reassuring as if He did.

Filed Under: Faith, Miracles, Uncategorized Tagged With:

Sometimes I Wish I Could’ve Taken The Blue Pill

September 20, 2010 By Randy Olds 6 Comments

“Ignorance is bliss”, was the remark that Cypher made while he was cutting his deal to get plugged back into The Matrix in the movie with the same name. But is it really? It might be for the individual who lives in that ignorance, but what effect does it happen to have on those around him or her?

I wish that I didn’t question Christianity so much.I wish that I didn’t have to constantly dig in my search for absolute  “truth” with regard to my faith.

Not that I question the basic tenants of the Christian faith. I have no problem in believing that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God, who came in the flesh and was resurrected by God the Father on the third day. In fact, in many ways I tend to think that I am fairly conservative. For instance, although I’ve long abandoned the idea that the Bible is inerrant, I still believe that God was directly involved with the composition of it and that it does indeed have within it the infallible words of God. I still think that the Gospel writers were pretty accurate in recording the words of Jesus, and the idea that Jesus’ words in those Gospels are not to be trusted  as His actual words seems a bit of a stretch to me. I think that the histories recorded in the Old Testament are, at least for the most part dependable, no matter when it was that they might have made it into their final written form. I don’t think that you can justify homosexuality, or any other sin for that matter, by twisting the scriptures to you liking. With that said, I also think that there are many homosexuals, prostitutes and drug addicts who are closer to the Kingdom of God than many professing Christians are.

It’s not so much the Bible that I question. It’s the people who have interpreted it for the last two thousand years, fallible people who quite often are trying to prove their own presuppositions through the words held within it. Not that they always have had dishonorable intentions, although some have. For instance, you can take just about any one of our early Church fathers, and find areas in which they were mistaken even though most of them had honorable intentions. So then, the question arises…what else may they have been wrong about?

With all of that, I still find that beyond the basic claims of Christianity and the essential truths demonstrated by the Bible, I tend to question just about everything else. It just seems to me that there are so many sincere Christians across the globe that believe so many different things and have so many different traditions, that there is simply no way that they are all wrong…or that they are all right. So I dig, and I poke…and I question.

I think that my wife sometimes gets annoyed at me for asking so many questions about things that some Christians simply never think about, or if they do think about it, they don’t worry about it much.

To be honest, I sometimes wish that I didn’t have to question everything so much. I wish that I could have a simple faith in Christ, go to Church on Sunday, maybe read a little bit in my Bible every day…you know, just  for inspiration. I wish that I didn’t have so many questions. How important is it to know all about Heaven and Hell, anyway, just as long as I know that I’m not going to be in Hell? All of those questions will be answered eventually.

The problem is this. Every time that I find the answer to one of my questions, I end up with about thirty more questions. And every time that I find something about the Bible or Christian traditions that might not be as “true” as I previously thought, I get to wondering what else that I currently assume to be truth could be in fact not so true. How far does the rabbit hole go?

And although ignorance can indeed be bliss, I am convinced that ignorance is not always a good thing. Ignorance is what has led some Christians to think that it is okay to burn books. Ignorance is what has led some Christians to bomb abortion clinics. Ignorance is what has led some Christians to deny fellowship to many of those who need the love of Christ more than anything else. Ignorance is what has led some Christians over the ages to murder and maim other Christians who they considered heretics. Ignorance is what leads hundreds of thousands of Christians to think that God is some sort of cosmic ATM machine. Ignorance is what leads many Christians to lead lives of guilt and self-condemnation for imagined sins that in reality aren’t sins at all.

I suppose that a part of the reason that I question so much is probably because of my upbringing in Armstrongism. When you grow up and realize that about 75% of what you were taught about Christianity was in error, it is hard to take anything that any preacher or theologian at face value. After nearly every sermon that I hear or every Christian book that I read, I will spend hours poring over my notes to see if what I was told or what I read is accurate and reliable. Sometimes it is, sometimes I’m not so sure. Sometimes I become convinced that what I’ve heard or read is a complete falsehood.

I sometimes wish that I could have taken the blue pill and just go to church and accept whatever I hear as “truth”, but I simply can’t. Like Neo, I don’t think that I ever really had a choice. I was always going to take the red pill. It was my destiny.

Filed Under: Faith, theology, Uncategorized

Climbing Mountains of Faith, Hope and Strength

July 16, 2010 By Randy Olds 5 Comments

I am beginning to learn that the road toward sanctification is rarely tread upon even ground. Instead, it is a path that passes over grand mountains, through dark valleys, and constant switchbacks along the way. At times the path is fully illuminated and it is easy to see the way ahead and at others the trail seems to be shrouded in a dense fog and the best that can be hoped for is to simply continue putting one foot in front of the other and trust that God will not allow me to stray too far off of the path.

Nearly every Christian writer that I’ve read writes about the mountaintop experiences as well as the times spent walking through the “valley of the shadow of death,” and early on in my walk with the Lord, the mountaintops seemed easy to attain, as if God had magically transported me to the snow-covered peaks with little or no effort of my own. And my first experiences in the valleys were relatively short lived as God swooped in to rescue me and swiftly guided me back to the crest of another mountaintop lest I lose hope.

Over time, however, the path out of the valleys and up the sides of the next mountain have become increasingly more challenging. I have found myself thinking, “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be much easier now that I have the help of the Holy Spirit,” and “Where is the peak of this next mountain? I’ve been climbing for quite a while now, and it’s nowhere in site.”

In the process of sanctification, or becoming more like Christ, the lines often blur between what is God’s part and what is mine. I’ve read a great deal on the subject and no-one that I’ve read has been able to give a realistic, clear-cut answer to the question of how much I am responsible for and how much help to expect from God. Of course, without the help of the Holy Spirit, I never accomplished much of anything, but I am beginning to realize that there are some battles that God expects us to work out on our own.

J.I. Packer explains that:

“God…is very gentle with very young Christians, just as mothers are with very young babies. Often the start of their Christian career is marked by great emotional joy, striking providence’s, remarkable answers to prayers, and immediate fruitfulness in their first acts of witness; thus God encourages them, and establishes them “in the life.” But as they grow stronger, and are able to bear more, He exercises them in a tougher school. He exposes them to as much testing by the pressure of opposed and discouraging influences as they are able to bear – not more (see the promise, 1 Corinthians 10:13), but equally not less (see the admonition, Acts 14:22). Thus he builds our character, strengthens our faith, and prepares us to help others.”

When I was younger, I spent a number of years living in the mountains of East Tennessee, and spent a fair amount of time hiking though the Great Smoky Mountains. I remember a few hikes along some of the more challenging portions of the Appalachian Trail where it seemed that the next peak would never come. Legs burning, lungs on fire and nearly drained I’d round another switchback expecting to see the crest, but instead see just still more straight up trail. I would pause for a moment, adjust my pack and continue up the trail. Giving up was not an option.

When I did attain the peak, the thrill was incomparable. I would let down the pack off of my back, grab my canteen and sit down to soak in the view from the top. I had made it! All of the pain in my legs and sweat-soaked shirt was forgotten as I surveyed miles and miles of God’s beautiful creation.

Additionally, because of the fact that I had conquered this particular mountain by my own strength and skill, I had the memory of it in my mind the next time that I set out to conquer yet another peak. The experience gave me confidence and hope that I would not have had if I had not completed the climb.

In Romans 5:3-4 Paul writes “… but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.”

This same sentiment is echoed in James 1:2-4 ; “Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

I suppose that those easy mountaintop experiences early on in my walk with the Lord could be compared to taking a helicopter to the top of the mountain. The view is still wonderful and exhilarating, but I didn’t have to put much effort into getting there. And because I didn’t put any effort into it, there was not much spiritual growth involved.

And although I could not climb the mountains without the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit, the fact that God is making me climb the peaks myself instead of allowing me to take the quick way up is forcing me to grow spiritual muscles that I will need later on. I also know that God is still right beside me and will not allow me to dash my foot against a stone. If He sees me veering to close to the cliffs edge, He will lovingly guide me back to the safety of the trail that He has set before me.

God wants me to rely fully on Him, but He also wants me to grow spiritually, and He knows that if I never have to climb the trail to the top by my own (ever increasing through Him) strength, then I will not achieve the growth that He desires for me. He also knows that the exhilaration of making it to the next peak that He has planned for me will be much more rewarding and increase my faith, hope and joy if He allows me to make it (mostly) on my own.

In “Reaching for the Invisible God“, Philip Yancey writes about childish (as contrasted to childlike) faith:

I wish I could encourage Christians, as some do, to ‘name it and claim it!’ I wish I could raise expectations that God will change the rules on our behalf and make life easier, not harder. Every time that I wish that, I face the temptation of childish faith – the very temptation that Jesus resisted in the wilderness.’

Or as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.”

Filed Under: Faith, Learning About God, Philip Yancey, sanctification

Strength In The Lord

July 8, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

The last few months have been difficult for me.I have been tried and I have been tested, and many times I feel that I have come up short of what I feel are God’s expectations of me. I have felt condemned and frankly, I haven’t felt worthy of God’s love on a number of occasions. At times I have stumbled in my faith that God is running the show and has my best interests at heart. Fear has subtly crept into my heart. Discouragement has raised it’s ugly head. I heard a sermon once where the pastor said that discouragement is the devil’s most effective tool.

During the last month or so, while I have been feeling not-quite-so-spiritual, I have focused my time on working on the Tres Dias website that I have been building and been reading through the Old Testament. I haven’t quit praying, but the quality and quantity of my prayer life has seemed scant and devoid of real meaning, at least as compared to what it was a few months ago. I have been determined to just grit my teeth and get through this spiritual dry spell.

Last week, I stumbled upon a little paperback book that my wife had tucked in the back of our bookshelf.  My wife had dug out this little book because she was looking for a devotional for her women’s group at church. It was a little book by Catherine Marshall called A Closer Walk.  The book is kind of like a 1950′s blog containing personal journal entries that her husband, who was at one time the editor of Guideposts magazine, had published after her death. I believe that God had this little book saved for me during my time of trouble.

After reading through this little book (I’m currently re-reading portions of it), I realized that the condemnation that I was feeling was not coming from God, but it was rather the devil who was telling me that I was not good enough for God’s love and mercy. And I also realized that it is simply our natural condition to occasionally go though times of fear and discouragement. The key however, is to realize when we are in a spiritual “funk” and go to God with it.

Over the course of the last week I have redoubled my efforts to draw close to God through prayer and study. Last night the Lord led me to a passage in 1 Corinthians 4:3-5 where Paul says that he didn’t even judge himself, because:

It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

It is clear from scripture that God knows our innermost heart. That is where He is looking. So even when, as Paul says in Romans, we do as we don’t want to do and don’t do what we want to do, God knows if we are earnestly trying to live out lives as pleasing to Him.

Tonight I went back to where I’ve been reading in the Old Testament. I’m currently in second Chronicles.  There were a couple of places in Solomon’s prayer of dedication over the newly built Temple that stood out to me. The first was in 2 Chronicles 6:27 where Solomon prays that God will “forgive the sins of [His] servants…so that [He] may teach them the good way to walk in.” The second was later on in this prayer in 2 Chronicles 6:30 where Solomon reiterates that “[God] alone knows the human heart.”

However, it was ten chapters later where I came to the part that I felt like God was really speaking to me. Hanani had come to King Asa with the Lords rebuke because Asa had stopped relying on God’s strength to fight his battles, and instead depended on help from the king of Aram. The prophet Hanani tells Asa in 2 Chronicles 16:9

“For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to show Himself strong for those whose hearts are completely His…”

This was the verse that I needed to read.  I thought back to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“But [Jesus] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness’…So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, and in pressures. For when I am weak then I am strong.”

I have not been relying on God’s strength enough, and I have been condemning myself too much.  I asked God to forgive me for not trusting in Him to fight my battles for me and asked Him to search my heart and bring into submission any part of me that is still in resistance to His perfect will. My strength must come from God, not from me. I must continue to learn how to trust Him with every single detail of my life and not fall into fear and discouragement or self-condemnation.

Filed Under: Faith, Spiritual Dryness, Trials and Tribulations
« Older Posts