05/07/2024
Faith, Time and Safe Landing
Hello friends,
"Jesus never promised a smooth ride. He only promised a safe landing." -AFL
Jesus never promised us a smooth, honky-dory ride through life. I haven't seen it anywhere in scripture. He said that we will have tribulations. He however promised us safe landing. He said, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)"
Believers are battling disappointment and depression. I believe the cause of this is what I call a motivational approach to the preaching and teaching of God's word or a selective personal processing of the word of God. Both scenarios create the impression that in Christ we shall have no trouble and that erodes grit in the younger generation of believers.
I have both heard and read heart breaking stories of so-called believers who ended their lives because of disappointment and adversity. This is the result of teachings that tend to manage God's brand or more accurately, build a ministry with a hyper-positive brand, or from a personal failure to come to terms with all the facts about faifh.
On the one hand, the church atmosphere is designed to create the impression that there is no "wahala" and that everyone worshipping is above the problems of life. The messages are wired to condition people's expectations to be polarised towards results and away from process. However in places like this we also find believers who are grappling with serious existential and faith conflicts in their hearts, trapped in the dark chasm between "wetin my pastor dey preach" and "wetin dey sup for my life".
On the other hand, the believer chooses to believe that by holding on the God's word he is automatically insulated from the battles of life, or the believer has become too positive and result conscious that the gravity of the process of faith has been reduced in his mind to the works of the law. These leave him vulnerable to be prayed upon by the lion prowling the earth, looking for who to devour. In fact he has become so positive that he is oblivious of this hidden looming danger.
My observation also reveals the need for scriptures like PS 34:19 and Prov 24:16 to be taught in modern congregations. Often, the only temptations talked about are those leading to sin (which is awesome). However more needs to be preached and taught about life's trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, congregations where this is taught are considered not woke or ignorant about what Christ has done. The woke folk have been made to believe that "wilderness experience" is not scriptural (I am also aware of extreme teachings about wilderness experience like, God afflictibg you with something to get your attention or teach you a lesson. This one no dey o. Wilderness experience is a coinage from the experience of Israel's sojourn around Mt. Sinai and the essence is to show God's faithfulness towards the believer through the trials of life not to display God as some despot). Also these woke folks often rationalise Rom 5:1-5 dwelling on the first 2 verses - afterall na "hyperperisus" " - excess, undeserving, be the Greek adjective wey describe the" "grace" wey dey there according to my Greek loving brethren. Hmmmm... the matter pass like that o. I am sure Apostle Paul wasn't speaking from both sides of his mouth at once when those verses were penned down - their message is crystal clear.
The effort to positively project an image of God without the facts of scripture waters down the gospel and reduces it to the level the senses can manage - but we walk by faith, not by sensory perception (2 Cor 5:7).
God is a good God and the world we are living in is a fallen world. Know that because of this, bad things will happen to good people and it will not be God's fault. However, it is a test of faith. I have been through that phase of faith built on an impression of the finished works of Christ that insulated me from the harsh reality of this truth. My wake up moment came when died suddenly under mysterious circumstances.
I had prayed and declared God's word. Even after her death, I was dogged in my faith, refusing to come to terms with what was happening which made me not to sanction an immediate burial of the body. On the morning she was to be buried, I was connected online to Morning Dew and God's servant was leading a confession. As I was declaring what he was saying from God's word, there began a fierce battle in my mind - I felt stupid, I had a toddler's co**se lying in another room being dressed for interment and I was busy declaring God's goodness. My people e no make sense but I no shut up. It was so straneous on my body that I broke down in deep, painful sobbing. At that moment I didn't cry because I was about to bury my child. I cried because of the pain the mental battle I was fighting with God's word inflicted on me. I have never experienced pain that intense before or after that fateful morning I was before God on the altar of God's sure mercies, Morning Dew.
A few months down the line, I spiralled into the abyss of depression (prior to this, I didn't believe believers could be depressed o). On one of those days, I opened up to my boss and spilt my guts. After listening patiently, she asked why I was acting entitled towards God. I was taken aback but I wanted to hear her out. She reminded me that this world is messed up because of sin and that by default we are undeserving of God's mercy but for Jesus Christ who has made a way for us. She emphasised that what had happened can happen to any other believer and that it didn't make me any less a believer, so I should learn and grow from it. I did learn and grow. It took quite a while to recover.
I began to study my response to that dark episode. I noticed that it is a pattern produced by a gap in the hearing/teaching of faith caused by an overemphasis on the results of faith over the process of faith (either by the preacher or by the hearer). I also found out that although this happens due to an imbalanced presentation of faith, it mostly happens due to a selective processing of the word of faith by the believer - I saw that I was the problem as I had been selectively processing my pastor's teaching on faith. I didn't make this discovery on my own, God's Spirit alerted me to this.
I went back to listen to all previous messages on faith and gained clarity particularly from the Following the Faith of Abraham series. I was also able to resolve my confusion about the time-faith relationship between receiving and believing God's word and walking in its material equivalent. The missing link is one word - PROCESS.
The results of your faith should never be confused for a miraculous intervention (although the result itself is a miracle). A miraculous intervention (or what we call miracles, the move of the Spirit, instant result) is an action of God's sovereignty which may or may not be dependent on your faith. However, the result from receiving, believing and acting on a word from the Lord is ENTIRELY your faith and trust in God through a process subject to the span of time. PROCESS TAKES TIME. So, if you faint in the day of adversity, it is because your strength is small. What is that strength? It is that confidence and trust in God which does not dissapoint, which comes a formed consistency of character resulting from proven endurance all happening where? In the realm of TIME! In one of the messages in that series, my father, using Romans 4:17 - 22, expounded the process of faith and the time relationship of faith. By God's Spirit, I saw it and was delivered.
Jesus never promised that we won't have bad things happen to us because we believe in Him. We're assured that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us." (Rom 5:37). We know that all things will work together for our good - including that heart break and depression and disappointment - because we love Jesus and are called according the ordination of God for us in Christ that we should be joint heirs with him!
Glory to God!
Thanks for reading. I hope it blessed you. Don't be blessed alone. Feel free to share to your TL and to brethren who need to hear that if God is on their side, no one can be against them!
With love,
Osasah O. Uchechukwu
