Lite Faith Diet
I’ve been on this diet for sometime. I’ve been loosing pounds. It’s really easy here’s the diet: be lazy, eat little, meditate little, and lo and behold you loose pounds. Unfortunately, the diet I’ve been on hasn’t really lost me any physical pounds, just spiritual pounds.
I’ve been on the “Lite Faith” Diet. This diet as stated above is really lazy. It involves “religiousity” but really no movement towards God, eating very little of God’s word, virtually no meditation and what should I expect? Moving mountains? The truth is I expected God to keep all the promises he promised when he stated in Matthew 17: 20 And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
I’ll be honest, I knew I had little faith, but little faith provides the impossible to be possible. It can move mountains right? God’s been showing me some different answers with better results to these mustard seed “Lite faith” diet questions. And, he’s been showing me that although little faith produces great rewards, large faith produces greater rewards.
It started a few weeks ago, I attended a Beth Moore conference. (By the way, never ever go to these unless you need change and to be challenged.) I was attending the conference on the heels of miraculous healing. (see There is a Season blog). Recently, I was diagnosed with having a prolactinoma brain tumor. Whether it was bad medical advice or Christ healing, I didn’t have a brain tumor! Praise God. God showed me through that experience that He is worthy to be trusted in. In that situation, I didn’t really have any control. I HAD to trust Him. Next, Cole and I had to trust in God and have faith that God would provide financial provisi0ns toward the extreme medical bills. And, He has. The hospital has forgiven the debts 100%, we’ve had a portion forgiven by 50%, and we’ve received over a thousand dollars from friends and family serving God by graciously giving. You’d think that after all this God faithfulness, that I would be ecstatic and I was, but it didn’t push me deeper than my mustard seed faith or really my “lite faith” diet.
At this conference, Beth Moore talked about Galatians 1:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. She challenged us to crucify our ego. To not just humble ourselves to God and move away from pride, but to get out of our own way. To stop saying we can’t or shouldn’t because of this. She reapplied the concept of the Old Testament righteous men and women who couldn’t do it on their own, and who honestly shouldn’t have been able to do it, but did because of God. Christ lives in us! In the Greek, this Christ living is the same word for morph. So the verse actually says Christ morphed in me. This idea of Christ being morphed in me is a new concept. If Christ is morphed into me, then I am Him. At least I should be. As you can see, once you understand that your ego is your biggest enemy, you can allow Christ to be morphed in you.
At this point, I knew my ego was a big part of my “lite faith” diet. My pride was not my issue (for once) rather the things that God was moving me towards that I let me talk myself out of. Once I laid that down, a strange thing happened. I ask God to show me what next? What do I do know without my ego in my way?
I believe God answered me, almost as clear as day He told me, “Get on your knees, I will do incredible things with you”.
What does that mean? I have no idea, I don’t know exactly what things God has in store, but I know they are going to be incredible. He’s called me to start a women’s bible study despite the fact that I am only 24 and feel that I am not a great “spiritual” giant, I don’t have it together, and really it probably won’t go well (see the ego problem)….truth is, He’ll use me regardless. It’s not really me, it’s him through me.
Additionally, he’s already proving that it is not enough for me to believe in God, I must move out on believing God. What I didn’t realize about Matthew 17:20, is there is a promise that a “lite faith” diet will produce some miraculous results, but in Matthew 17:21 it says, “this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting”. In order to move mountains, we better be praying and fasting.
I’m learning that faith is more than having a “lite faith” diet. It is constantly seeking God’s will. Crucifying our ego. Letting Christ morph into us. Faith is complete trust. It’s understanding that although we don’t know the answer or know the next step we do it out of obedience. Faith is never complacent it is always moving. Faith is to stop the laziness, stop the “prettiness” and move into the muck. It is not a pretty thought, it takes action. Faith requires prayer.We better be on our knees, so that God will do incredible things with us. He promised he would move more than the mountains!
Darkness Falls
Ephesians 5:8-13 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. for it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
I’ve always believed the “light” to be a good thing, until it was my sludge and grim that was to be exposed.
This last year has been a very trying one, God began with me writing some things he was teaching me. As I began to write, journal, and have some silence with God memories and the things I didn’t know began to surface. Unfortunately, like many of us, I began to move those things deeper inside me. The things began to eat and me and I couldn’t stand who I had become. But, the unveiling didn’t stop there. It’s funny how one layer of the onion opens up to a deeper layer then a deeper one. God basically cut my onion in half and the juice just began to run and it hurt something fierce. It seemed the more God revealed the more I felt I had to hide the darkness. As I’ve stated in some earlier blogs, the darkness made me fearful to be me and fearful to express myself honestly. But, God thankfully doesn’t leave us laid open and bare to be inwardly wounded and alone with our sin and isolation. We’ve been talking about this “sin-isolation” in church recently through a Rated R series on sexual sin. It wasn’t through this study that I moved out of isolation, but the study helped me to reconcile my understanding in the sin process. The series asked me a few questions that I hadn’t really thought about
- When we allow sin to move us to isolation, what does that say about our view of God? For me, if I honestly admit it, during this phase of isolation (that is not a one time thing, but will occur time and time again during sin) I mis-believed that God was predictable, he loved me, but couldn’t love me through it. By putting it in Hands, the drama would be there with everyone else, He’d want me to confess and I wouldn’t be able to take it. God could love other people, but somehow I was unloveable and by admitting it to God it made it real, I had to admit I did it and I didn’t want to.
- When we allow sin to move us to isolation, what does that say about our view of ourselves? Isolation moves me to believe that I was different. My struggles are my own and I couldn’t handle the reprocussions of the sin if it was exposed. My misbelief about myself is that I wasn’t strong enough to endure, but strong enough to carry the burden silly isn’t it?
- When we allow sin to move us to isolation, what does that say about our view of our family, children, and friends (mostly the people we’ve chosen to surround ourselves with)? This part strikes me the hardest, I guess I didn’t really think about it in these terms in the midst of my sin, but looking back I can see that my misbelief was that once I moved past my misbelief about God and myself, I believed that those around me were so unpredictable and would offer no forgiveness or it would be broadcast to the world which is unforgiving in its very nature. Oh, the things we make ourselves believe….
In the 2003 movie, “Darkness Falls”, which in my opinion is a little ridiculous and unrealistic of a movie, there was a woman, back in the 1800’s that little children would take their old teeth (ones they had recently lost) to in exchange for a gold coin. A few years later, tragedy struck her, first a fire in her house which caused her to not be able to go into any type of light, and then she was hanged. The modern day town uses this original story as a sort of folk lore to explain the “tooth fairy”. The folkloric story goes that she can’t go in the light, and if you wake up and see her, she’ll kill you. A young boy who’s heard the story wakes up the night the tooth fairy comes and sees her, but is able to turn on a flashlight which pushes her back into darkness. The young boy grows up and becomes obsessed about staying in the light and if any darkness comes the “tooth fairy” comes out to kill him.
This somewhat ridiculous movie makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be more healthier to view darkness in the same way. Ephesians makes it clear that the darkness kills us it says, “Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light.” When we put our faith in Him, he’ll move us out of the darkness and into the light, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It took me a long time to get past my misbelief about God, myself, and those around me. I’ve learned that the darkness lasts as long as we let it. We can be free from it, and yes the light is a little blinding at first, but if we stay in it and we will live. LIFE, plain and simple, if it were for nothing else isn’t that worth it?
