Simple Faith
Simple faith says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation.” This includes pandemonium, pandemic, and panic that we’re so familiar with. However, Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” God wants to reproduce children “after His kind”. God allows tribulation because tribulation and the pressures of this world prove His character in us.
According to 2 Timothy 3, in the last days Christ-followers will suffer tribulation and persecution. God said through His prophet Isaiah, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” According to 1 John 4:4, “greater is he that is in you than he that is in this world.” God permits the trials of life to prove and to test his strength within us to bear up under the pressure…. to prove that he is Sovreign overall and that he has a plan and a purpose to will and to do of his good pleasure in us and through us.
According to Hebrews 11:1, Faith is the substance, the evidence, the proof of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Simple Faith is in the object of faith…. our Lord Jesus Christ. According to scripture, we look not at the things that are seen but at the things that are unseen. The important things are the unseen things are the things of the spirit of God. What endures? The things of the world will soon be past, only that which is in Christ shall last.
Through the doors of heartbreak, God opens an intimate relationship with our Lord. For tribulation worketh patience and patience experience (proven character,) and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts which is given to us.
When our hearts are broken, Our Lord Jesus will come to us with the the grip of his nail pierced hands to rescue us. If pain and tribulation is the way to intimacy with him, then thank him for breaking our hearts.
The challenges of life, the watershed moments of life are the ways that God tests our faith to bring us closer to him. Pete recalls that when he was waiting for his son to be born, the doctors said, you’ll need to leave the delivery room. We’re losing the baby’s heartbeat. As he prayed in the Father’s waiting room for God to save his wife and baby, he heard God’s voice: “How much control do you have over this situation?” Pete answered, “none.” Then God asked, “No matter what happens will you still honor, love, and serve me?” Pete searched his heart. He answered, “You know all things. You know that regardless of the outcome of this situation, I’ll honor and serve you.” Then the doctor came into the father’s waiting room and said, “I’m sorry but we lost the baby.” God had prepared Pete’s heart for this crisis and he and his wife learned to trust in the Lord for comfort and strength.
This is deep water Christianity. As Cory Ten Boom said, “no pit is so deep but that our Lord isn’t deeper still.” As the Psalmist wrote, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
God gave us his Holy Spirit to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Therefore, “quit ye like men.” Our command is to conduct our lives “as it becometh the gospel of Christ.”
Even though we wrestle with the sin nature that we inherited from Adam, God by his grace has created within us a new nature in Christ. For he who was without sin was made the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.
When Pete was going through the ordeal with his wife’s terminal brain cancer, he made it a point to post journal entries on the Caring Bridge website. In order to approach life in a fallen world with its conundrums, crises and confusion, its important to have a simple faith. Simple means to focus on the main thing. When they received the news that Suzan’s cancer had returned with a vengeance, God directed Pete to Psalm 1: Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
When Suzan’s neuro-oncologist showed them images of the cancers that were spreading all over Suzan’s brain, she said you have two options. One option is to take immediate aggressive action. The other option is to do nothing and “let nature take its course.” Pete asked, “what do you mean by immediate action.” The doctor said, “we’ll perform surgery today to bore a hole through her skull, insert a port, and inject medicine directly into her brain.” They asked the doctor how much longer this would extend her life. She said that on rare occasions, patients have gained another year or two with this intervention. Or it may not make any difference at all. Without the surgery our prognosis is that she may live another month or two. The doctor said, I’ll give you and your family some time to make a decision but if you opt for the surgery, we’ll need to perform the surgery today.
Pete, Suzan, and their eldest son Chris discussed and prayed for God’s direction. A few days earlier, when Suzan woke up she had said to Pete, “I’m so disappointed this morning.” When Pete asked her why, she said, “Because I thought I’d wake up in Jesus’ arms this morning, but here I am with you.”
Suzan was eager to run to meet her Lord. When they decided not do proceed with the surgery, they felt the comfort of the holy spirit. Simple Faith means to let go and let God…. casting all your cares upon him for he careth for you.
Pete wrote on Caring Bridge, “Our shepherd doesn’t drive us, he leads us into the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. I’ve found that for whatever God has called me to in any given day, His grace and strength is always sufficient for the task. He’s my shepherd and he will never let me down.
One of Suzan’s favorite hymns is a hymn of simple faith that says it so well:
Have thine own way Lord, Have thine own way
Thou art the potter, I am the clay
Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have thine own way Lord, Have thine own way
Hold over my being absolute sway
Filled with Thy Spirit so all can see
Christ only always living in me…
… That in simple faith we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
