I think that what God has been showing me a lot lately is that to be able to draw closer to Him, it takes directing all attention towards Him, not on myself. Too often I have found that I am concentrating on my flaws and trying to be more faithful to God when now I see that faith is not measurable by anything that we can do. I think that we often (well I know I do) think “well if I just devote more time to God, reading His Word, praying, fasting, attending bible studies and church and doing service” I will increase my faith when really faith is simply to see God. Once we pause and look to God, then that is when all of the focus is turned towards Him and away from ourselves. And we need to fix our eyes on Him. Once we “behold the Lamb of God” there is no turning back- our eyes must be stuck on Him and be in constant awe of our God who is incomprehensible. And we don’t have to look far, just inward because He is living right there! And once we see God we are able to see what He sees. So we need to be of a faith that takes seeing the unseen God because “what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal”.
And a challenge often much harder than seeing God is listening to Him. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ”- Rom 10:17. God is alive and He wants to talk to each of us so badly, but we often don’t take the time to listen. Guilty! I know that for me I use the excuse that I am so busy and constantly on the go, needing to get everything done and packing my schedule full of “stuff” (classes, bible study, work, internships, etc) so I don’t have the time to put in to sit quietly and listen to God. Instead, I just like talking to Him and asking for everything. One thing that has stuck with is that when asked “what is praying?” most people will respond with something along the lines of “well it is talking to God”, but when my grandma was asked this question, her response was that “prayer is a conversation with God”. Words of wisdom right there! Prayer should not be one-sided. It is a conversation with Him, which includes letting Him speak to us. And why wouldn’t we listen to God? He has all the answers. God is always speaking and He can speak to us in a variety of ways, whether through the Bible which is His Word, through verses, images, songs, or thoughts that come into our head. Or even through other people- we just need to acknowledge that this is God’s way of speaking to us! I had known this before but I have really been focusing on this lately and it is incredible with the ways in which God really can speak to you if you only listen for His voice.
And once you listen to God, He will often tell us to GO. For once we have come to know God and have listened to Him, we should have the desire to follow Him and to do what He tells us. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2. We are on a mission, running a race for God, and it is gonna look different for each one of us, but we have all been called to work for His Kingdom and to set aside all that we cling to and offer it up to Him so that we may serve Him. Yet we are all sent to GO and proclaim the good news of the gospel whether it is to those right beside us (neighbors, family members, classmates, coworkers), or even to those on the other side of the world. And there is an urgency to it because if we are not the ones to share Christ with others, then who is? Yet God has also shown me that it isn’t a sprint, it’s not about the number of people I can run around telling about Jesus, but it takes endurance to be able to build trust and relationships with people so that they may come to know Jesus. We have been given an incredible gift and that gift needs to be shared with others.
So faith comes with looking, listening and then running the race that God has set before us. Ready, set, go!
