My favorite quote about faith is from Dr. Martin Luther King. “Faith is taking the next step when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Our goal at Sower Life Coaching is to enable you to see your very own staircase and to equip you with enough understanding of your Creator’s intention for your life to help you ascend to your full potential.
So I ask you, “What do you have faith in?” Many of you might be saying, “I have no faith in anything.” But I assure you you have more faith than you think. Think of something you probably do every day. I’m talking about your computer specifically, the Internet. Think about it. How many of us can give an accurate description of how the Internet works? The same thing could be said about the unfathomable energy that we call “God.” For us to understand, that would be akin to an ant walking across the keyboard of our computer and trying to figure out the Internet.
Luckily for us, God has given us an instruction manual. It is called “scripture.” For some of you, I can feel the hairs on your neck start to bristle, “Not those old, out-dated stories I hear you saying.” I have met many people, even those who fill the churches of our country, who truly have no idea of God’s intention for His creation and how it plays out in their lives.
We shall, as I stated, try to give you an overview of how the events of the scriptures played out. With our newfound knowledge, we shall increase our faith in God and His ultimate plan of restoring the broken relationship to where it once was.
Hope. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary states that the meaning of hope is to cherish a desire with anticipation. Hope is what keeps most of us going when things get tough in our lives. So hope is the second link in the chain of happiness and fulfillment in our lives. Faith, as I like to say, is the horse; and hope is the cart. Psychologists today have come up with their own form of recipe for happiness, which is developing an attitude of gratitude, optimism, and staying out of social comparison, which leads me to believe the scriptures. Solomon, the son of David, who was the man after God’s own heart, said in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Those words of Solomon, divinely inspired some 3,000 years ago, ring true today, even more so when you read what he has to say about hope in Proverbs 13:12, ”Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Can you see the connection?
Developing a faith leads to an understanding of who you would like to become so you do not defer anymore your actions, and your hope for what you long for starts to become a reality. This is hope. We have planted the seed. Your tree is growing. Soon it will be time to reap the harvest.
Love. Perhaps no word with such importance and meaning is thrown around more casually—this word, “love”—to the point where it has almost lost its true meaning, until we read in scripture, John 3:16, “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.”
Most of us have seen what we thought was some idiot jumping up and down holding a sign that simply said, “3:16.” What does that mean? Why would some idiot go to all that trouble to carry a sign like that to some sporting event? Never did I take the time to investigate what it meant. I am sure it would have been a whole lot easier had the search engines we have today been in full swing.
So love is the third and most important link in our chain. Faith is the action. Hope is the longing. And love is the ultimate goal--the goal of being restored back to our original state of contentment, that feeling of being whole, at peace with ourselves and those around us--so comfortable, in fact, that we walk around naked, unaware of judgment, condemnation, or prejudice because there was none in the beginning when we walked with God. But through deception, we were removed from this perfect union of truth and harmony and fell into what we have today in our lives--those negative, even destructive, thoughts and perceptions. Guilt, shame, and judgment have replaced love, joy, and peace--exactly the place where the enemy wants you, to be constantly living in fear of what others might think of you if you step out in faith to turn over a new leaf, metaphorically speaking.
God’s love for you is so great that no matter what you do or have done, He loves you unconditionally. He loves you so much that He was willing to die for you, that you might live a life beyond your wildest dreams. At least that has been my experience.
To learn more about that journey, download the book on our website, The Road Home. Come join our ever-increasing community at Sower Life Coaching, devoted to giving you the tools you need to increase your life to its full potential through the gift of the word, the power of the Spirit, and the love of God. Join Now for the Entire Faith, Hope, & Love Series"