The Path to Faith

 

“Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God.”  Philippians 4:6

“If you love me, you will obey my commandments.”  John 14:15

“But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.”  James 1:22

 I hate to say it’s a formula, but it’s a formula. When we are anxious or worried about something, the Bible tells us to pray about it. Once we’ve prayed, we’re supposed to obey. Through those things and what God brings about, our faith will be increased. Like I said, a formula. That doesn’t mean it's up to us or we can force God into anything. It means that God has given us promises in His Word and when we obey Him, He meets us there!

 When was the last time you were anxious about something? Maybe it was a presentation you had to give at work or a difficult conversation you needed to have with a loved one or wondering what you would do when there was more month than paycheck. How did you respond? I used to get stuck in a “what if” spiral. “What if this happens?” and, “What if that happens?” As I’ve mentioned before, I have a very active imagination, and I could roll this spiral pretty far pretty fast. Early in our marriage, if my husband was 20 minutes late coming home from work, I’d already written his eulogy in my mind and figured out how I was going to support our children. Keep in mind, he had a 2+ hour commute, so 20 minutes difference wasn’t uncommon! You could definitely say I struggle with anxiety.

 But our verse today from Philippians tells us not to be anxious about anything. Like anything, anything? Yep, anything. But wait, I have a brain tumor. Surely that gets some sort of exception? Nope, it says ANYTHING! So, it says we’re not supposed to be anxious about anything. How can we do that? Some things are pretty anxiety inducing! The verse goes on to help us with that too. It says we’re to come to God with prayer, petition and thanksgiving. Prayer is just a conversation with God, us talking to Him and listening as well. Petition is a request. We’re supposed to give our requests to God, share the most vulnerable parts of ourselves and lay bare our deepest desires. Finally, it says to do this with thanksgiving. We can thank God for what He is going to do before He even does it, because we can trust that He will. We can also thank Him for what He's done in the past and this will reassure and comfort us that He can do it again. Now this doesn’t mean He will give us exactly what we ask for, unless what we’re asking for is His will to be done, then He will. If we ask for a Ferarri, we shouldn’t rush to the window expecting to see it with a big bow sitting in our driveway. But if what we need is reliable transportation, He might open up an opportunity for that in a way you wouldn’t expect. It will be what’s best for you, that you can count on!  

 Prayer draws us into and deepens our relationship with God. We fall more and more in love with Him, and when we love Him, we obey Him. This isn’t the kind of obedience inspired by fear or obligation. If we are just doing what God tells us to because we are “supposed to” then it is not obedience out of love. The obedience God calls us to is born out of a trust that what He has told us is what’s best and we are moved to please Him through doing what He’s told us to. Does that always make it easy? No, no it doesn’t. But is it always easy to get your child one more cup of water or hug at bedtime? No, but we do it anyways, because we love them!

 The more we obey God, the easier it is to do, because we see the fruit born from it. At first, when I felt God directing me to talk to someone or do something, I hesitated. A couple of times He put on my heart to bring the speaker at church a glass of water DURING THE SERMON! I was mortified. I sat, planted in my seat trying to come up with any excuse NOT to do it. Finally, the directive was like a burning coal inside me and I had to fulfill it. So I went and got a glass of water and gave it to the person. And guess what? Nothing bad happened. Nobody stood up in the middle of service and boo’d me. Nobody pulled me aside and told me I was out of line. The speaker actually thanked me and appreciated it. And I learned that the thing I thought of as being so terrible really wasn’t that bad at all. Who knows, perhaps the speaker was praying that God would provide some water for him! God went on to ask me to do this a few more times after that, sometimes in even larger group settings. Each time it was easier and easier to do. Then one day I saw someone else doing the same thing! I didn’t know them, but in that moment I felt a kinship with them because we obviously have the same Father.

 Seeing the results of obedience, seeing the answers to our prayers, strengthens our faith. The more we experience God taking care of us, the more we can trust Him to do so in the future. Yes, faith is the belief in things unseen, but it is based on something. I believe because I have seen God’s faithfulness. I believe because I have followed Him in obedience and had wonderful things happen as a result. I believe because I have thousands of years of stories of other experiencing the same.

Here’s the Thing: I’m not a fan of formula spirituality. I typically don’t believe that the same thing works for everyone or that if you do x+y the result will always be z. But this is different, the exception that makes the rule you might say. Prayer draws us into relationship with God. That relationship leads to a desire to obey. Seeing the results of prayer and obedience deepens our faith. It happens over and over and over.