Episode #106 Faith In What? – Reconstructing Faith

Hey friends, it's Jen, and we're continuing in our series on Reconstructing Faith and taking a different approach to this concept of deconstruction. And my belief is that deconstruction for the purpose of demolition or for the purpose of destruction is simply a counterfeit of the work of the Holy Spirit and what God actually does in our lives. In episode 103, we were talking about how it's important to look at who we place our faith in. In that same vein, we're continuing with today's episode, looking at faith for what, or faith in what.

And one of the common areas that I have seen where we can go off track a little bit in how we live out our lives of faith is in placing our faith in a specific outcome we want to receive from God instead of placing our faith in God no matter the outcome.

I wonder if you can relate to this. Where we come to God with a specific prayer need, and we know in our heart what we would love to happen. We know the way that we want God to answer the prayer.

And God tells us to bring our requests to Him. It is good that we ask God for these things. He is our good Father, and He gives good gifts to us.

Also, the faith that we have for the answer is not well placed if we're placing it in a specific outcome, instead of placing our faith in the God who will care for us no matter the outcome.

I'll read for us from the gospel of Mark, and this is when Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, right before he's betrayed and arrested to be crucified. In Mark 14:36, and he, this is Jesus said,

“’Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:36)

That's a hard prayer to pray.

To know the pain that you're walking through, the pain that will come if God does not answer the prayer in the way that you would hope that he would. Even Jesus asks God, if it's possible to remove this cup from me, please do. But not what I will, what you will.

He trusted God that much.

This is one of the areas in modern westernized Christianity where there are too many false beliefs around the ways that God answers our prayers. And those all really boil down to, if you do what God wants you to do, you can manipulate him to do what you want him to do. If you prove your actions or prove your love or prove your faithfulness in the ways that you need to, God will give you exactly what you want.

That is not the God of the Bible.

And in fact, the God that we serve operates so far outside of our own understanding, if we truly trusted him, we wouldn't want him to bend his will to ours. We would yield our will to his.

Still bringing our request. Still asking to give us the desires that we get to have in our hearts. But asking that his will is accomplished more than our own. God always answers our prayers, always. Sometimes his answers are yes or no, or not yet.

Our faith is always well placed when it's in him. But when my faith is wrongly placed in the outcome that I want to receive, I am setting myself up for disappointment. I can infer that I don't actually know God. Or God doesn't actually care for me if he doesn't give me the answer that I thought he should have given me. This can be especially painful when we're coming to him with really significant requests.

Jared and I have two babies that I miscarried and who are in heaven with Jesus. And one of those miscarriages, our baby, she had a chromosome abnormality. And so her development was delayed. We actually were told by the doctors that we had had a miscarriage and came back a week later and we're told Oh, the baby's still alive. It has a heartbeat. And so we went from a week of grieving into a week of warfare, asking God if it would be his will for him to heal our baby, for him to sustain the baby's life. And then we found out that the baby actually did pass away.

In those weeks I had a lot of different needs that I brought before God. I wanted our baby to survive. I wanted our baby to be healed.

But my faith was placed in him, no matter what the answer was, because I trusted his character and his perspective. I trusted his care and his love more than the specific outcome.

No matter what he offers us in each specific prayer need, he is always offering us himself. He is always inviting us to live in him, to come closer to him, to receive more of him. And this is a significant topic to talk about because in reconstructing our faith, if we have placed our faith in specific outcomes, those things need to be remodeled.
That faith is built with faulty materials on an incorrect foundation that will not last.

Some of the reconstruction we need in our lives is simply a realigning of our perspectives. Where we have placed faith in things that aren't worthy of it. We get to place our faith in the one who is over and above and beyond all expectations or outcomes. So here's our question for God today:

God, will you show me, are there places I've misplaced my faith in specific outcomes? And please help me return my faith to be placed in you alone.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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