doubts

By Faith

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I am an optimistic and positive person for the most part. I usually see the glass half full. Unless it’s when I’m really thirsty, then the glass is empty, ’cause I just drank it all.

Sometimes, I have serious doubts. Sometimes, it feels like my dreams and goals are just out of reach and nothing will really ever change. Sometimes, I’m not even really sure what it is I’m reaching for.

Everybody has those times, if they’re honest. Everybody doubts, everybody questions, and as the old R.E.M. song says, everybody hurts.

The question is, Will you still believe even when common sense tells you not to? Will you speak your faith even when you don’t feel it and the words coming out of your mouth feel fake and fraudulent? Will you still hold on?

The old cliche is true. It really is darkest just before the dawn. I’ve found that just when I feel like I’m at my lowest ebb, that’s when I see God moving in my circumstances and in my life.

The promises of God are just as true in the dark as they are in the light. He is just as faithful in the storm as in the sunshine. He is just as near when you can’t feel Him as when you can.

I’ve said it before many times, but it’s true. What you think may lie to you. What you feel may lie to you. But God won’t. Ever.

So many people in the Bible had times when they felt God’s promises were hopelessly out of reach. I think about David and Abraham as examples. David when he was running for his life from Saul and Abraham when he and Sarah were still childless and eligible for Social Security.

But they held on to the promises of God even when everything in them (and probably everyone around them) told them not to, and that faith was rewarded in the nick of time in God’s perfect timing.

May you and I hold on as tenaciously and as stubbornly as they did.

It will be so much more than worth it in the end.

 

For Those Who Have Doubts: From Kairos Tonight

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I love the question John the Baptist asked. He was in prison for speaking the truth against Herrod and he send his disciples over to Jesus to ask, “Are you the One or should we look for someone else?”

I love that question because that’s somethng I’ve wanted to ask at times but never been brave enough or honest enough to admit it.

I’ve had my doubts. So have you, probably. Jesus is big enough to handle our doubts and answer the questions we have.

His answer to John the Baptist was this, in essence: “Yes, I’m the One. I’ve made lame people walk, blind people see, given poor people hope, and raised dead people to live.”

I think His answer to you and me would be something like this

“For those who have staked their very lives on Me, I prove Myself to be the Supply to your every need, the Comfort to your every pain, the Deliverance in your every trial, and the unquenchable hope in each and every circumstance you have ever or will ever face.

I am the God’s YES and AMEN. I am the fulfillment of every one of His promises. I am the One who holds you together and keeps your hope alive. I am your Hope.

Your doubt doesn’t negate my Sovereignty. Your weakness doesn’t negate my Strength. Your failings don’t negate my ultimate victory.

I am the Ultimate Promise Keeper and my ultimate promise is to complete what I started in you, to make you whole and healed and free, to see you become all I meant for you to be when I made you.

Trust in me when circunstances tell you not to, when common sense tells you not to, when your own senses and feelings tell you not to. They may lie to you, but I never will.

I have set My affections on you and My love for you is stronger than your weakness or doubt. It’s stronger than your fear. It’s stronger than any foe you will face or any obstacle that blocks your way. My love for you is even stronger than death.

I will get you Home.”

 

For Whitney: The Questions None of Us Can Ever Escape

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I watched most of Whitney Houston’s funeral. I kept thinking the whole time, “This shouldn’t be happening. This should be the funeral of someone much older who had lived a full life and was ready to go.” If Whitney was in the news, it should be that her comeback album was due and how she was sounding better than ever.

But that was not the case.

Kevin Costner’s tribute resonated with me the most. He said that when she was auditioning for the leading female role in the bodyguard, she was plagued with insecurities. She kept asking, “Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will people like me?” Those were the questions she had asked all her life.

For so many of us, we ask those same questions. I personally have never asked if I was pretty enough, but I did wonder if I really had what it takes and if I could ever be attractive to the opposite sex.

Sadly, many look for answers in the wrong places. Too many seek to numb the pain of the questions when they can’t find the answers. Whitney’s own struggles with her own demons were ones she couldn’t overcome in the end.

I am thankful I can look at my faith and find the answers to these questions. I’m thankful that when Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” He meant it.

Whitney, if I could tell you anything, it would be this. Yes, you were more than good enough; you were great. You were more than pretty enough; you were beautiful. You were so much more than liked; you were loved by so many.

Not because you could sing better than just about anybody who has ever lived. Not because you were beautiful and had that breathtaking smile that made us believe what you sang about.

Not because you sold millions of albums or had sold-out concerts or had those 7 #1 singles in a row. It was because you were a child of the King. It was because Jesus loved you before you were even born and set His affections on you from the very beginning.

Jesus loved you through it all, the good and bad days. Even when you were hopelessly addicted to drugs and alcohol. Even when you had wrecked your once-glorious voice. Even when you had become a running joke to the media.

And Jesus loves you still. Nothing will ever change that.

I can’t speak to Whitney in person, but I can speak to millions of teenage Whitneys out there, crying for someone to tell them they are good enough and pretty enough and to love them for who they are.

Jesus does. He can take the most wrecked and ruined life and transform it into something more beautiful than anything you can imagine. He can take your very worst moment and turn that into the first sentence of your testimony.

Whitney, you may have lost the battle to drugs, but you won the war in Jesus. You are now free from those fears and anxieties you never could shake, those painful memories that haunted you, those voices that not even cocaine and alcohol could drown out.

As I heard in the funeral, it seems like death had the last word. But Love is so much stronger than death, for Jesus disarmed it completely when He stepped out of the grave on Easter Sunday morning.

The legacy of your music and your love for Jesus will outlive the drugs and alcohol and scandal. You fought the good fight and God looked down and saw it was time for you to come Home.

Rest in the arms of your Abba Father tonight, Whitney.