The testing of your faith

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." – Proverbs 3, 5,6

Faith," explained a little boy who hadn’t quite gotten the picture, "is believing what you know isn’t true but wish it were." George Mueller wouldn’t have agreed. Mueller was born in Kroppenstaedt, Prussia, and began his education in the classics in a German university. Invited to the home of a friend, Mueller heard his friend pray in such a way that he was deeply convicted and eventually was converted.

Mueller spent most of his life in Christian work, but unlike most people today, he never asked anyone for money–not once. His secret was faith in God, and he believed God for the means of feeding and clothing more than 10,000 orphans. Mueller wrote, "Faith is the assurance that the thing which God has said in His word is true, and that God will act according to what He has said in His word. This assurance, this reliance on God’s Word, this confidence, is faith."

Although Mueller says that faith is not walking in the dark but acting on the promises of God’s Word, this presents us with a problem. How do we find the courage to act on what we already know?

In this marvelous book, the Bible, we read dozens of wonderful things that God has promised. But for many of us, there is a gulf between what we believe theoretically and what we do and put into practice in our lives.

We soon learn that the real struggle is often a matter of our will, wanting to be completely in control of our destiny instead of trusting in the promises of God, and doing what we know we are supposed to do. It is little wonder that God allows our faith to be tested, for only then can we be sure that indeed God has met us at the point of our need.

We all want the blessing of God’s deliverance. But it takes the testing to help us know that God is there and that He keeps His word. Human nature though, being what it is, we’d just as soon skip the challenge. We prefer deliverance without going through the fire and blood.

When you face periods of testing, faith is holding on to what you know is true. This means you won’t understand everything, but you keep on trusting and await God’s provision and deliverance.

Understand that with God’s promise to provide and protect comes His demand for simple obedience. For George Mueller it was trusting for the more than eight million 19th century dollars necessary to feed the orphans of Britain. For you, it may be trusting God for your daily bread, or for the strength to get through another day. But the good news is that Jesus Christ is the same "yesterday, today and forever". You can trust Him.

Resource Reading: Philippians 1