unwavering faith

A faith that trusts Him only when the ending is good is a fickle faith. A faith that trusts Him regardless of the outcome is real. This was the faith of Abraham as he climbed Mount Moriah, fully expectant that God would provide the lamb. This was the faith of the widow, using up her remaining flour waiting for God to provide more. This was how I desired to live: completely surrendering the way I would write the story in exchange for eyes wide open to seeing how He would write it. In surrender and trust, I would find His promised beauty for ashes. Katie Davis Majors

Katie Davis is the person who inspires me a lot and who ignites my heart and my soul in blogging. I was a teenager when I read her story in her blog, my love for little ones gets deeper because of her. I remember I would really watch all her interviews on how she started her ministry in Uganda. She was very determined to serve and to love God's people. I waited for four years to have her book "Daring to Hope." I read it around 2020 and whenever I re-read it every time, it really dares me to hope. I was really dreaming before to go up in a mountain and to teach in depressed areas when I was younger just like her. Yet, we have different stories to tell. It's the totally opposite because for five years I taught in a more advanced school, students who were raised with silver spoon and fork but I realized it's the same and I learned so many things in life during those years. I am grateful for all the training, and to all the people I met that mold me to be the person I am today and I feel deeply in love with my students there.

And I was still favored to teach in depressed areas when I was in college. During vacations, we had mission trips and we would conduct our VBS in different areas. One of the great memories was when we taught the "Mangyans" in Mindoro, that was my first time doing it. Literally, they would walk with their bare feet, they have dirty wounded skin, and fusty clothing. We visited their houses at the mountaintop, a small space where they could just sleep.

I forget all of these when I was busy chasing the things that I thought matters most. Like most of us, we want to be more fulfilled, more qualified, more excellent, more significant, and more than enough. These are all good when our intentions and motives are in right place, not for our selfish ambitions and desires. I am reading this book "Empty Promises" actually I was just browsing it yesterday but every line kicks in. The society is teaching us so many things that actually results in empty promises. Chasing things that won't matter when we're six feet under the ground.

Of course, we have different stories to tell but I just admire those people like Katie Davis who have firm faith like that, who desires to bring souls for God and not to be possessed over earthy achievements. And that was the life of my mentor and our pastor when he was alive. He never even invested his money to have a beautiful house and vehicles, not for himself nor to have a beautiful future instead he invested his time, strength, money, and his everything to bring more souls for Him. And I keep asking myself do I have unwavering faith like them? Do I really trust the Lord fully? Or I always have conditions to Him before I follow Him?

I remember the faith of this old man. He waited for years to have a child to her wife because both of them were old and gray. God promised that He will make him a great nation and he will be a blessing. God fulfilled His promise and her wife conceived and bore him a son at her old age. They named their child "Isaac" means laughter because her wife laughed to herself with her unbelief. One day, God tested his faith, God asked him to offer his child. He waited for a long time to have this wonderful gift but he never withheld him instead he offered his child with his unwavering faith that God would provide a lamb, ready to sacrifice his own son, and he passed the test. Then, God promised again that his descendants would be as many as the stars at night because of his faithfulness. (Genesis 12-22)

Abraham trusted the One who keeps His word and promises thus he had unwavering faith. He was willing to sacrifice everything because he was fully surrendered. How about us? Whom do we really worship?

We all long for more of something in our lives. Purpose, worth, significance, acceptance, security, validation, love, and beauty. We can sacrifice everything for these promises but they will just leave us wanting, longing, used, and empty. (Pete Wilson) But the good news is we can be like this man, who surrendered to the One who can give us the true meaning of life, our worth, and significance in this world.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. He did not withheld Jesus Christ for us. He died on the cross so we can have eternal life with him. Yet. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, we don't deserve His love and goodness. He is holy and we are sinners. It's only through Jesus we can come to God. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. It's only by His grace, His goodness and mercy for us. Jesus Christ is the way and the truth, through him we have worth, significance, and value that the world couldn't give to us. So we can have unwavering faith like Abraham, that our life is full of purpose and meaning if we truly surrender everything to Him.

Our sins hinder us to come to God, we will experience His wrath, death, and endless suffering in hell when we don't live for Jesus. Perhaps, in this world we can get all what we wanted but at the end of our lives, we will account everything to God, the good and the bad.

Jesus calls us not only to come to him, but to go for him. The consequences of your mission will last forever; the consequences of your job will not. Nothing else you do will ever matter as much as helping people establish an eternal relationship with God. What matters most is that you fulfill God’s eternal purposes regardless of where you live or work or whom you marry. (Rick Warren)

Let's keep the faith!

⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

1 John 4:9, NIV Bible Gateway

¹⁰ A thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But I came to give life—life that is full and good.

John 10:10, NIV Bible Gateway

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:23, NIV Bible Gateway

²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23, NIV Bible Gateway

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6, NIV Bible Gateway

¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

John 1:12, NIV Bible Gateway

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV Bible Gateway