Childlike Faith and Being Certain

Recently I have started to fall in love with the Lord more than ever before. I remember the days when I was never content with Him, when all I wanted to do was chase after all my own dreams and depend on my own ideas and not give Him a second thought. But at the minute I'm reading my Bible every day; and not just a few verses at a time. I'm reading multiple chapters, one after the other, in complete awe of what God is telling me. I'm amazed by Genesis, of how faithful God was even in the days before Jesus, before God truly knew what it was like to be human. And, when I open the New Testament, I find great encouragement and inspiration in the words of Paul the Apostle. I'm seeing so much of myself in the likes of Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob. I'm learning that God uses the weak to do great things and that He doesn't need me to be anyone but myself to do the work He's calling me to do.

This is what happens when we trust God with our lives, when we stop trying to control things, when we decide to focus on Him. It isn't easy, it never has been, and Jesus doesn't expect me to think it is. But when we praise God He blesses us and it is so beautiful. I always wonder, when I reach this place, why I ever decide to run from Him, why I ever want anything else... and all I can think of is that good things don't tempt us, but bad things do. We always want the things that hurt us the most because that's just how we're wired. But I fully intend for this year, 2012, to be incredibly different from the past 21 that I've lived. This is the year that I finish university, the year when I won't have the same support network, the same group of Bible study friends and Christian Union buddies. I need to focus on God even more than ever before. And because, right now, I don't know what I'm doing after university, but I am certain He has plans for me. And, while I wait, all I want to do, all I need to do, is praise Him.

You see, just because we don't know where we're going does not mean we're lost. In fact, I think I know where I am now better than I have for my whole life. Maybe it seems childish to have so much hope in something that I cannot see, but that's the whole point isn't it? To have a childlike faith, to have confidence in what we hope for, to be certain of what we can't see. So if you think I'm childish for wanting to dance with my Jesus and sing to my Lord then that's fine, because I couldn't be more content. For the first time in months I don't need alcohol or men or parties or anything of this world. I just need my Jesus.

x