Have you ever heard the phrase "unconditional love"? As a married woman I'm quite familiar with it. I've learned to have unconditional love for my husband and children using God's example. I'm not always great at it, and I find conditions creeping up from time to time. But those are the times when God gently reminds me to show His love (which is always unconditional) to my family, and I quickly change my tune.
I remember the first time God told me my faith was conditional. It was 2005 and my nephew had just died of cancer. I got angry at God for choosing not to heal him, when we had been praying with faith for his healing. I had a whole arsenal of scriptures to prove He had to heal my nephew! Only He didn't. My nephew went to heaven, there is no question about that. But with no understanding of why God chose not to heal, I went numb to prayer. I wasn't sure how God's word could be true. After all, I had faith that God would heal.
It was during this dry time when God first whispered to me, "Your faith is conditional."
How can faith be conditional? I thought. To have faith means to believe, right?
God began to show me that just as my love could be conditional - based on the actions of my loved ones, so my faith had been conditional - based on whether or not God acted the way I told Him to.
OUCH!!! He was right!!! Because He chose not to physically heal my nephew, I got angry and my faith became conditional.
In the years since this revelation, I've watched my faith go back and forth between unconditional and conditional, but now I see it happening and quickly remember to focus my faith on God and not the outcome I'm hoping for.
How's your faith?
4 comments:
Great post. I think of Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego. "Even if you kill us, yet will we trust you." (I'm writing that from memory, so it might not be 100% accurate). But the point is: whether they were spared the fiery furnace or not, they would not deny God, but would love and trust him.
Unconditional faith is a process we grow in, just like unconditional love. Good post.
So true, Sonya! The only way to have unconditional love and faith is allowing the Holy Spirit to take over. And it is a learning process...one I am still very much in.
Good work, Sonya!
Sonya, this is such a good message.
I think about how God spoke to Job, saying:
“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s and can your voice thunder like his? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty."
So often, we are living in the smaller story and unaware of what God is working together for good.
My conditions are so flawed. I'm glad that I can trust the one who knows the whole story!
Sonya, that was a wonderful revelation. It helps us look at faith from 'unselfish' way.
Personally, I have gone through tough experiences, almost feeling like wrestling with God like Jacob did. The only difference is that Jacob won, I keep on losing (or don't I?). My struggle led me to write a book which I called: "When God Did Not Fulfil His Word: A Flash of a Thought; a Lingering Paradox, or a Permanent Verdict?" By the time I wrote, "Faith, Mountain And The Seven Options", I had come to settle on the fact that when a mountain refuses to move, it is not necessarily because there is lack of faith.
Thanks for sharing this insight. It opens the eyes of the believer so that He lets God be God, that is, allowing Him to still exercise His infinite options and not think that our faith can put Him in a corner and deplete His options.
God bless!
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