For everything we do in life, there is a cause and effect. If you have a job, the cause is because you likely need a job or else you can’t eat. The effect is a steady pay-check and a trip to the grocery store to buy the food you need to survive. And here is another good example – How many of us exercise our body? Why do we do this? I exercise because it makes me feel fantastic – it’s a natural high for the body. When the blood starts circulating it relaxes the muscles. It can even take away tension headaches. It helps the brain (and that’s always a good thing!). I exercise with the goal in mind of feeling good (my muscles start to relax), sleeping better, and building up strength. Cause and effect. The cause is that I want to feel better. The effect is that I do.
And it works that way for the way that we think as well. Yet, if you’re like me, you seldom think about what you’re thinking about, so your thoughts are directing your way and you may not even be aware of it. Perhaps we give little thought to what we feed our mind, not realizing that we need to make a concerted effort to think the right kind of thoughts! How we think determines how our stress level and also how successful we will be in life. Before I really knew the Lord as I do now, I used to read all kinds of positive thinking books because I suffered with depression. On yesterday’s blog, Relax or Regress? I talked about some of the things I got myself involved in (stemming from Ouija boards, numerology, horoscopes, etc.). Rather than bring me peace or relaxation, they actually led to serious problems for me. Depression was one of those problems. I really struggled with it and felt I had little control in overcoming it even though I was reading very good books on positive thinking. And I have to say that there are some excellent books on the subject, especially when they are written by Bible-believing Christians, like the late Norman Vincent Peale, also a pastor of a church in New York
So today I’d like to talk about applying our faith in a way that changes our thinking, definitely our stress level, and even our life. Cause and effect. Everyone believes in something, even though they might say they don’t. You have to believe, for example, that when you start your car, it will run and you’ll be able to drive it to get to where you want to go. You may not understand why your car works, but you just know that it will as long as you’ve kept it tuned and remembered to fill it up with gasoline, right? Without faith, we would have no purpose in life. When people get married, most people believe that their new husband or wife loves them. They have faith to believe this is true, or why would they get married in the first place? And then after the wedding ceremony, the real work begins of staying married, or at least, staying happily married. I believe that because we all have faith, we have tremendous abilities to accomplish unbelievable things with our lives. But this faith when fuelled by God’s Word and put into application goes well beyond the ordinary.
The faith spoken of so frequently in the Bible (mentioned 229 times in the New Testament alone in the KJV), although it is unseen, has the promise of two things – substance and evidence.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
What are these verses saying? Look at the example in verse 3. Whatever God spoke appeared. Man and his inventions did not create the world, and it certainly did not happen according to the Big Bang theory. To bring this into clearer perspective, I’d like to share personally, how Hebrews 11:1 has worked in very tangible ways in my own life. In my mid-20s I decided to set some definite life goals for myself. I wanted to become a much better writer so I set a goal to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree (major in English) from the university. I wanted to be married, so I relentlessly prayed for a husband of God’s choice for me. I wanted a house or a cabin at the lake, so I prayed for that as well. I wanted to get out of debt (especially after I had to miss a lot of work due to my stress illness). I could envision each of these things happening, although I must admit, the desire for a husband of God’s choice for me, was the toughest one to believe for! (another story, another blog).
But each one of these things did come to pass. I wanted to get out of debt (that was the first thing that happened). God restored my health so I was able to return to work, and He also opened up the beginning of an artworks business for me which I continue to do to this day. I envisioned myself as a better, more skilled writer. And so the second goal was accomplished after I attended university (and wrote and researched dozens of essays and reports) and then graduated six years later. A year later I was married to God’s choice for me, a wonderful man (read about it in my book The Journey of Oneness). And a year after that we bought a house at a lake and lived there for several years. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It all happened in succession! God granted all the desires of my heart. But He even went beyond that. I was given not only the most incredible husband on the planet (for me), I was given the opportunity to write full time! And I discovered that me and my husband both share the exact same vision for ministry and so we work together to bring it about.
Now this is not to say that these things just came about easily. Just the opposite is true! I had to wait for many years for everything to fall into place. And there were times I tried to push God’s timetable ahead, and that was a disaster, especially when it came to waiting for the right husband! But I kept envisioning the end result and believed that God was going to answer my prayers of faith. I had to strive to believe and not give up! What is a prayer of faith? A prayer of faith is one where you ask God for something and then you leave it there. You release it completely, thank Him for His answer, and then go about your day in a state of contentment and happiness no matter what the outcome of your prayer! This is what it means to me, and I can tell you that it works for me. I’ve gone into more detail in some of my books, and it is powerful. So the “striving to arrive” means that we must not only prayerfully set our goals and dreams in place, but we must believe they will be accomplished. We bring them to God in prayer, and then we strive to let go and let God. And this doesn’t mean that we abandon our dreams and goals just because we release them to God. It means that we invite Him into this important area or areas of our life! The effects of doing this can never be underestimated. For one thing, just by letting go, we are relieving ourselves of the burden of trying so hard to carry it all out on our own, and this lowers our stress level and raises our joy level!
Sometimes in our impatience and frustration, we say the wrong kind of prayers. We hold onto our dreams and desires with tight fisted determination, and rather than release it to God, we demand that He answer us in our way and in our own impatient time. Jesus knows us, and oh how He loves us in spite of our failures. He always forgives and shows us that His perfect way is much better than our own limited way of thinking. One of the things He’s given us is instruction in how to pray. I’m sure almost everyone is familiar with this passage of Scripture:
Mat 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, [begin with praise and thankfulness]
Mat 6:10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [desire His will more than anything else]
Mat 6:11 Give us today our daily bread.
Mat 6:12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [keep a pure heart]
Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. NIV
Many people may not know this, but when you say this prayer and believe it, it is actually a prayer of warfare (esp. verse 10). So whenever we pray we must always be careful to pray according to God’s will and not our own. But this is a subject for another blog.
Thank you for reading and I pray that you have great success in your walk of faith today!
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