Walk by faith not by sight

Every morning I have my coffee, put on one of my favorite worship CDs, open The Word, and wait on the Lord. A few days ago I heard the Lord say “Don’t let what you can’t see keep you from my promised treasures that exist.”

“What”? I prayed. “Lord, I have faith in what you promised me.” As he prayed that the Lord would bring to my memory the words he had spoken to myself just a week before. I doubted the promise, I was giving up, even questioning the gift God gave me. I sit here in my mid 40’s and it hadn’t happened yet. I had lost faith!

A friend of mine says that “Faith is taking the word of God! It’s that simple, right?

Well, it wasn’t for me. I know that God put this dream or treasure in my heart when I was a child. However, he had not yet seen evidence of it; therefore, I doubted that it even existed.

The Lord showed me that we are in a fierce war that is an ongoing fight for our faith. Satan is determined to destroy the faith of God’s beloved. The stronger your faith, the greater Satan’s attack against it.

When our faith is shaken, shattered, or lost, we grow weak and search the world for something we can make happen. Just like Abram and Sarai did, I love this story.

Julies’ paraphrase… of Genesis 12-21

At the age of 75, the Lord told Abram to leave his country and He would make Abram a great nation and bless him.

I don’t know about you, but at that age I’m not sure I can do what the Lord told Abram to do.

So Abram leaves his country, takes his nephew Lot, his wife Sarai, and all their possessions and people.

Abram had traveled a long distance and came across the great tree of Moreh in Shechem. The Lord appeared to Abram here and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So Abram built an altar to the Lord.

Abram believed in this promise of the Lord, even at the ripe age of 75! He did not question the fact that he and Sarai had been unable to conceive children. It was not a problem. The Lord had promised him a treasure and he had faith!

Fast forward a bit and they had all traveled to Egypt. Abram knew what the Egyptians were like, he told his wife Sarai that they would think she was beautiful and kill him if they knew he was her husband. Abram then told Sarai to tell the Egyptians that she was his sister. That way everyone would be well treated. The Egyptians took Sarai for their king.

After Sarai was freed from the Egyptians, she brought her servant Hagar back to Abram and his people. Lot and Abram got separated and then Abram had to rescue Lot.

The Lord makes a pact, a promise to Abram, “your servant will not be your heir, you will have a son of your own flesh and blood”, Look at the sky and count the stars, if you can count them. Then he said to him: So shall your offspring be.

Can you believe this? Look at the circumstances that Abram is past the age at which we would consider that a man should conceive a child. Sarai, she is barren, how would she give her children?

So Sarai does what many of us do today when we don’t see God’s promises being fulfilled. She takes it into her own hands, looks to the world to fulfill her promise, and asks Abram to sleep with Hagar (his Egyptian handmaid of hers).

At the age of 86, Abram becomes a father. Hagar gives birth to a son and names him Ishmael. You can imagine the pain this caused Sarai.

Over the next 14 years, the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means father of many nations. Sarai’s name was also changed to Sara, which means mother of many nations. The Lord told Abraham that kings of many peoples would come from her.

Wow, what an amazing word, but come on, really, she’s over 90 years old. None gave up on what they were not seeing. They kept their faith in what the Lord had promised.

When Abraham was 100 years old, Sarah gave birth to a son, and they named him Yaasac.

The promised treasure of the Lord had been fulfilled.

God reveals treasures, promises, and dreams on your schedule; don’t give up treasures just because you can’t see them yet.

This has been a great lesson for me not to weaken in my faith, if God said it will happen. It’s just a matter of time.

For in him the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and for faith; as it is written: “The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (NKJV)