If there is one thing I have learned in life it is this; “Do not doubt in the darkness that which you knew to be true in the light (Lawhead, Byzantium).” It is so easy to be strong and confident and filled with faith when everything is going right and the world is peachy and filled with rainbows and unicorns. It is another thing entirely to stand and believe when we are facing the fiery furnace or when we are sitting in the depth of a lions den; yet, this is when it is most necessary. I have heard many people boast of their faith and how they will stand in the midst of the hardest battles in life, and then simply fizzle when the battle actually finds them. To be honest, I have been one of them in the past. I have been so filled with zeal and righteous intensity only to break and run at the first volley from an enemy that God has already defeated. The fact is that feelings and intensity are not necessarily faith.
Sure it is important to bring our emotions into line with the word of God; but, it is not emotion that gives us the strength to stand and believe. In fact, when Elijah went by emotion he actually failed. After he stood against 400 prophets of bail on Mount Carmel and defeated them all by the power of God he fled to the wilderness and hid in a cave because Jezebel threatened him (1 Kings 18). He was overcome by fear and his faith left him even after God had moved in a visible and mighty way. One minute he was a super hero filled with faith and power, and the next minute he was hiding in a cave. Now do not judge Elijah too harshly we have all been there in one way or another. One minute we are walking on cloud nine and God is moving pushing aside whole armies of the demons for us; and then, one tiny devil rears its ugly head and we are hiding in the corner in a fetal position. He moves and gives us a brand new car and then the tire blows. We stop seeing the amazing blessing he has done and only see the one thing that went wrong no matter how insignificant it is in comparison to the
blessing.
Jezebel was no where near as powerful as 400 prophets of bail; and yet, Elijah fled from her in fear. What did he do wrong? He took his eyes off of God and what he had done and put it back on the enemy in front of him. This caused Jezebel to become the center of his attention instead of God causing her to become the center of his focus and not God. When the enemy or the circumstances become the center of our focus then God no longer is. But if we do not focus on the enemy at hand then we are not being responsible right? That may be conventional wisdom according to the world; but, it is not spiritual wisdom. Faith says even though I do not see I still know God is in control. Psalms 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken (NIV).” This scripture does not say, “Worry and run around exhausting your strength feeling anxious and depressed; and then, God will move and help you possibly if you feel like he will.” No! This passage says cast your cares upon Him and HE will never let the righteous be shaken! He, being God and not you.
Whoa now Nelly! Are you actually saying that God doesn’t want me to worry about my finances or my circumstances? You mean I don’t have to pray everyday over and over again for the same thing? Isn’t that what God wants me to do? Let me ask you something. If you ask me to help you and I say I will and then you ask me every second of every day to help you how do you think that is going to make me feel? I said I would help and you can rest assured I will; but, if you keep asking me it makes me feel that you don’t trust me to do what I said I would. If we ask God over and over again for the same thing what we are saying to God is that we do not believe He will do what he says he will. If we need to be constantly reassured then it shows that we do not trust Him. But, I don’t feel like He is doing anything. So what! I don’t feel like the sun will come up tomorrow, but it is going to rise like it has every day since the beginning of the world whether I feel it or not.
Now I am not trying to minimizing how you feel; but rather, I am trying to show you that feelings lie and are not necessarily based in reality. Elijah’s feelings lied to him, and when he listened to them they drove him into a cave to sulk. He stopped believing in the darkness what he knew to be true in the light. This is also why praise is such a powerful tool and why it is the tool God established to overcome the spirit of heaviness. When we choose to take our eyes off of the problem and put them on to God we exalt Him above our circumstances and it gives Him the place to change everything not just our emotions. It is sad how we limit the power of praise to simply a motivational tool to change our feelings. Praise does not just change our emotions but it also changes our very circumstances. It literally changes the atmosphere around our lives. Just look at Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16). Praise did more then just make them feel better. It not only caused their chains to fall off, but it literally shook the walls of the prison until they came down around them. Imagine if we actually grabbed a hold of this principle and put it into practice in our own lives!
There is actually a type of medicine in the world called pain management. Pain management is when doctors have given up on their patients and they simply help the patient manage their pain through medication and other means. This is how we tend to view praise in the church at times. Praise is our emotional pain management. We praise so we can feel better instead of praising out of faith believing that God is already changing our situations. You know what God is saying when he says put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3)? He is saying that He is not only going to give you relief from that spirit but that He is going to SMASH the power of it over your life! Praise is the remedy for the spirit of heaviness not the management of it. It is not the Advil for the spirit of heaviness but the complete and utter destruction of the source of it! This is also why every time God did something for Israel they stopped and built an alter. It was not because God wanted attention nor simply because they wanted to thank Him. No they did it so they would always have something they could physically go back to that would remind them of what God did. In fact, they would often give the area a new name that represented what God had done there. This was so, that no mater how dark it got or what they faced that they could always go back to that place and be reminded that if God had done it then then he would do it again! Let us throw off the chains of oppression and praise God out of faith remembering that what he did in the light he will also do in the darkness; or as I prefer to express it:
“in brightest day and blackest night
no evil shall escape His sight
let those who worship evils might
beware His power Jesus light!”
No comments:
Post a Comment