Made more Faithful

Made More Faithful

At nineteen years wide eyed and ready to take on the world, the Lord took me on a journey to Busia, Uganda. I spent my summer at an orphanage called New Hope and fell in love with 72 children’s beautiful smiles. As I left that season of life I knew I was going home with a family of African brothers and sisters. The images of their precious faces were burned in my memory forever.

 

                  

Three years later it is like deja-vu as I walk the same streets and visit the old familiar things I used to know. One of the biggest things the Lord has shown me on this race is how faithful he really is, and in turn how we can give that same faithfulness back to him. Three years ago I started praying for an opportunity to return to New Hope. The Lord said, “Sarah, be still before me and wait patiently on me.” Most of us have things in our lives that we pray for and would love to see happen. Sometimes, however I think we forget what it means to live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Oh how easy it is for our hearts to get weary when we do not see immediate results for the things that we want. We forget that we serve a God whose faithfulness endures forever; a God who makes things beautiful and perfect in his good timing. The Lord calls us to be persistent in our faith and prayers, to live with expectancy and hope, that he as our heavenly Father has good things for those he loves. I once heard a pastor say, “Push, and pray until something happens!” If the prayer you have been praying has not been answered yet than why have you stopped asking, why have you stopped persisting?

In the entirety of my life I can say that there is not one time where the Lord’s faithfulness did not prevail. The Lord never promises he is going to answer prayers the way we want or the way that we imagine them happening. But God is faithful in keeping his promises and he turns his ear to us when we pray. A lot of times when we see nothing happening we think he is not there or he must not be listening when in fact it is quite the opposite. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise (2 peter 3: 8).

This month I experienced the incredible faithfulness of our father again. I had no idea that at this time in my life I would be on the World Race, or that this was the perfect season and timing for the Lord to answer my prayers. Three years is such a small sacrifice of persistence. The Lord knows and searches our hearts, and my heart’s desire is to be made more faithful to the Lord. This life is not our own and our faithfulness to the father is such a small price to pay for what he has done for us. 

 

                                                              

There were many days in those three years of praying that my heart had to learn patience in waiting. But even through the wait I rested in the peace of knowing that the Lord is always faithful. Don’t stop asking and waiting in faith for the Lord but be encouraged that you are being made more like him, more faithful.

When I can’t feel you I have learned to reach out just the same,

When I can’t hear you I know you still hear every word I say,

And I want you more than I want to live another day and

As I wait for you maybe I am made more faithful

–          Brooke Fraser (faithful)