Yikes. It's been a while since I've written anything. >.<
I'm really not sure what I'm writing about today, mainly because I had no intention of writing. I was just about to do my Korean homework when I felt like I should write, so here I am. Haha!
I guess the topic most fitting today would be faith. If you're reading this, keep in mind, these are just my thoughts and beliefs. I'm still a kid, so I may not comprehend everything correctly or the way that you do. That's why this is my writing and not yours. (and I mean that with all the respect in the world)
So here we go:
You know how, whenever a problem comes up, people always say "Just have faith and everything will work out!"? That drives me insane. I always feel the need to tell the person "Just have faith in what?" Because most of the time, they don't really understand what they're telling you to do.
The Bible defines faith as "... confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)
If you're in a hard time and someone tells you to have confidence in what we hope for...what does that mean? Same with 'Assurance about what we do not see'?
The first 1000 times I'd heard this verse, it made NO sense to me at all! Even after teachers and family members explained it, I still couldn't comprehend what it was telling me to do.
Then (after going to a new church) my pastor put it very simply.
Faith is believe God is who He says He is, and that He's going to do what He promised he would do.
When I heard it put that way, it clicked.
God is a savior. Help when there's no way out. A light in the darkness, a crutch when you're broken, a healer when you're too sick to survive. That's who God says He is and what He promised to do, was to provide for us. To take care of us. To take our burdens off our shoulders and help us carry them.
So, if Faith is Believe that God is our refuge, Savior, Healer, Perfector, (etc) who promised to take care of us and give us what we need, then that makes a lot more sense.
Notice, though, that I said what we NEED. God isn't always going to give us what we want. He's the perfect parent.
For all those parents out there...let's say your child really wants to chew on a piece of glass because they think it looks like candy. Are you going to hand it to them and say "Okay honey, but only because you want it." If you do, I don't mean to offend, but I'm seriously questioning your parenting skills. For 99.9% of parents, they'd tell their child 'NO' because they know that eating glass would hurt the child. Now, let's change the story a bit.
You're the Child.
The 'Candy' (glass) is what you're hoping for (money, that perfect guy or girl, a new job...etc)
God is the parent.
You're CRAVING 'candy' so bad that you might die if you don't get it, but your parent sees that if you eat that 'candy' it's only going to tear you to pieces. Being a perfect parent, He's going to say no. To you, that probably doesn't look fair. "But I want it! I know that if I have that, I'll be happier." It's still glass.
Now let's take it deeper.
Someone close to you is dying. You pray and pray for them to be healed, but they die anyway.
Did you just not have enough faith?
I don't believe so. I don't think God rates his favors by who has more faith. He's all powerful and has enough grace and mercy to stop every evil thing ever attempted on this Earth...
So why doesn't he? To be 100% honest, I don't really know.
One thing I do know, though, is that God can take a really crappy situation and turn it into something amazing.
Like a mother who's had a miscarriage can find comfort and hope in God and give having a baby another shot, and/or can be an encouragement to other women who have to deal with the same heartache.
A family who's dealing with a cancer patient can comfort other families with sick and dying members.
A person who got bullied in school can set an example for those around them to be a better person.
A parent who lived a partying lifestyle can encourage their children to do better.
In my case, a suicidal teenager can put her Faith in Christ, being confident that God is who He says He is, and being sure that He's going to give her what she needs, can speak to younger kids and help them realize their life is more important than anything else in the world and God loves them no matter what they do.
Now, here's a little more on my life...
I was suicidal from ages 16-19 and still struggle with depression. The cool thing is, that when I believe what God said about His son/Himself and learned that He was going to help me, I stopped being suicidal. As I mentioned a few sentences ago, I still have a hard time with depression, but God and I are workin' on it together. I can't say I know why God let the depression sneak in, (He didn't put it there, but he did allow it to happen.) But I do know that because of what I've gone through, I've been able to talk to people in middle and high school about life and how valuable it is. I've had a few of these kids find great churches and great ministry opportunities as well!
So God may allow bad things to happen to you. Sometimes he'll bail you out, but sometimes he wants to you lean on Him, put your FAITH in Him and TRUST that He's going to do what's best for you.
I have to wrap this up because I have things I need to get done around my house and my family is all about to get home. So.....
As always, if I said something that didn't make sense or you want to talk about you can e-mail me at summers.day.rain@gmail.com
Remember that God is everything you need Him to be and He promised to provide everything you need.
Again, I apologize for the randomness of this blog and the imperfect scatterbrain behind it. :-p
On a completely different subject...
Go check out Jaeson Ma. He's amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73kZ6wBoqTk
