A deceptive dance partner
He comes like a knight in shining armour just in time to ask you for the last dance after a night of fruitless sitting and waiting. When he walks into the room he looks right at you and smiles, gentle, warm and engaging as if he were sent directly from heaven just for you. The fruitlessness of the night has left your vision blurry and unable to discern a God-send from a distraction and that is when the handsome stranger strikes, “May I have this dance?” without a second thought you jump up to accept.
He whirls you around the room and you hope that everyone can see how lucky you are now that you also finally have a date. As you beam in excitement there is no way that you can foretell the disappointment that lies ahead when you briefly excuse yourself to check your make-up and there he is another girl in arms and this time he is dancing more intimately with her than he was with you. It’s a sad reality that Fear (the handsome stranger) doesn’t discriminate, he dances with whoever is available and willing and he can dance with many people simultaneously causing confusion and commotion as he does so.
This is a confession of mine many times in life where I have picked fear over faith and like this desperate teen at her school dance, I have then found myself trying very hard to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. Similarly life happens in such a way that sometimes the easy way out is the only one we are willing to see and so it seems like some kind of divine providence when that solution shows up.
A faith based management system
When we elevate faith over fear our belief in God is strengthened and we are reminded of the good plan He has for us as well as the purpose for which we were called from our mothers’ wombs. Operating in faith means that we are fully able to comprehend what is going on around us even to perceive danger and how it could potentially affect us but because we know that there is a higher power who handles the intricacies of our affairs we proceed acknowledging our human instinct to be afraid.
We have this thing of telling ourselves that fear can and should be gotten rid of, but that it is not a reality we can achieve in this or any other lifetime as long as we are human. A better system of managing fear is bringing it under submission in our minds because we know that God would never leave us nor forsake us and that He has the final say on every matter. This is only something that can be done by us; it is not a prayer that can be answered without our action to trust. When we truly understand this then we will be able to discern more clearly what a solution is and what a distraction is as the situation unfolds.
Unfortunately most times God doesn’t show us the full trailer of how our lives will unfold and so we are like a participating audience in our own film, we can only trust that there is a good ending ahead and be at peace with our lack of control over it because he is one director who cares more about the main actor than they do about themselves. I think of all the times I have tried to make it and tried to do all the right things by my own strength, it wore me out and left me feeling depressed and hopeless like I would never attain it.
Even now there are still instances where I have to be still and know that He is God and that I don’t need to impress Him with all that I can do. Instead He desires for me to put aside all I think I know and trust Him and this involves my personal sacrifice lest I say I did it by my own strength. Fortunately His plan is not so flimsy that it can be ruined by my mistakes this gives me the confidence to take on every new day with hope that good things are coming my way.
Now I can even dare to think creatively with a flare of innovation because I am building confidence that no matter the outcome I am covered by His wings. He is so great that within His plan there is provision for our error and a chance to emerge wiser from the tears than we were when they trickled down our cheeks in the first place.So how do we obtain and maintain faith? A good place to start is the word because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word and to pray always.
There is power in prayer
It’s just tiring and pointless trying to reinvent the wheel sometimes, there’s really no point in going five thousand extra miles to get to a hundred mile destination when provisions have been made to reduce travel time. Prayer is one such provision which has stood the test of time but ironically when the situation most requires prayer we tend to roll up our sleeves and prepare to get our hands dirty by our own troubleshooting mechanisms.
(To be clear I’m not saying that it’s a matter of praying and not taking any action but rather I am saying that prayer is a form of submission to God which inspires positive action towards the outcome through faith that the request has been granted or has at least been heard).
The power in prayer therefore lies in becoming humble enough to surrender and give complete control to God then the situation has no choice but to bend to His will for the good of all.
We should keep in mind however that a praying person makes mistakes just like anybody else, but the difference is how they are lifted back up after the fall. Notice I said lifted, because when mistakes are handed over to God He is faithful to correct them with love and understanding while strengthening us to handle the consequences of our choices.
