Fighting for Faith

The Lord opened up a very cool door to do college ministry while we have been here in Malaybalay. There is a small university in Malaybalay with about five thousand college students that attend. This area is similar to the states in that Christianity is the predominate faith here. The downside to this is that while so many college students know about Jesus, they dont truly know Him. These students have never been called to make their lives count for what is ultimate in the world. The Holy Spirit opened up the door for me and Daniel Haverkos to go on to the campus to share Christ with the student body there. We spent most of the afternoon just walking around praying, playing basketball with a small group of the students, and sharing with them that we had no interest in calling them to a religion but a person and His name is Jesus.

Later on that night I was invited back to teach at the campus fellowship and in spite of it being right in the middle of exams, about 60 plus college students showed up hungry to encounter the Living God. I was totally blown away. I had been asking the Holy Spirit to direct me to what exactly I was to share with these students. I felt like the Lord was leading me to share out of Hebrews 11 on faith. Faith in something that has been a major learning point for me over the course of the race.

About a year ago, I trying to figure out which Race to apply for. I was told between August and October. I was having lunch with a friend of mine, Jessica Philip, and she challenged me to go on the June Race. At the time, my immediate response was “You have lost your mind. I cant raise 16 thousand dollars in two months.� She graciously reminded me that God is capable of doing anything which I immediately dismissed because in my pride I already intellectually knew that even though first hand I had never experienced it. Later on that day I was talking to Marcus, a good buddy of mine, about the Apostle Paul and how strong he was. It was not that much later that I felt like the Lord asked me, “What made Paul so strong?� After thinking about it for a few minutes I responded, “I guess it was that he trusted you so much in faith for everything.� (Conversation is happening in my head. I have still yet to hear an audible voice even though I am longing for that day.) And the Lord responded, “Have you ever trusted me for anything outside of putting your faith in me to save you?� The answer was an unfortunate “no�.

That was a very hard yet life giving day for me. The truth of that moment was inspite of going to seminary, being a believer for 9 years, trying to draw as close to the Lord as I possibly could, I had NEVER once stepped out on faith and trusted God for the impossible in my world.

So I stepped out and waited for a miracle. 3 weeks later the money was in. My faith was growing. While we were in Mozambique, my computer totally crashed. It was done and gone. I had sent out an email to some friends asking them to pray for a solution to be found even though all the options seemed impossible. So I felt the Lord asking me to take 7 days and pray that it would be restored. To think that God would get involved in something like this was a stretch for me honestly. I asked the team to pray that I would have the faith to believe God for this one. And in 7 days, it was fixed miraculously. Wow. My faith was climbing. Recently I found out that a close friend of mine is sick and so I started to pray for a miracle for them. Throughout the Bible God heals time and time again and even heals the impossible to be healed even under modern medical care. And so I prayed and prayed. In this one, I will not truly know the end result until I am back home but I believe the Lord is doing the impossible in it and I trust Him for it.

I shared all of this with these students and told them that God had a huge purpose in their life and it will only be brought to realization if they actually start taking steps of faith, trusting God for the impossible. There is an awakening that will happen on that campus if these students grasp that truth and I am praying for it. And I am also praying that for the church worldwide. Especially in America.

I have come to realize that at least for me, even though I believe this to be greatly true of the church in America, the gap between what we believe (what we know) and faith (what we step out in) is a bigger gap than the Grand Canyon. And as long as that gap exist, the church that is said to be indestructible and unstoppable will remain powerless. We have stopped risking it because we dont truly trust God for the impossible. Can He really come though? Will He provide is I do this? What about my mortgage payment? I could lose my job? All the while we believe God can do the impossible yet never step out in it as if we really do believe it. We sit in church and listen to stories of Jesus healing the blind, yet have we ever prayed in faith asking God to right in front of us heal someone born blind? Do we really trust that the God of the impossible is still active in our world today? I know I lived a great bit of my life as a believer with a lack of true faith. Have you?