Faith is refusing to stop looking beyond....

I refuse to stop believing. I refuse to stop dreaming. I refuse to stop looking beyond what I currently see. I refuse.

Over the past year I have seen God work miracles that I literally never thought possible. I've replayed the chain of events over and over in my mind and I realized that God had me in his hands all along. No matter what I wanted or thought, He was in total control. The more I doubted, the longer it took for manifestation. Miracles are triggered by belief. Mere faith. That's all.

One of the most intriguing passages in the bible is "without faith it is impossible to please God". (Hebrews 11:6) Sounds simple enough right? All you have to do is have faith and keep it moving right? Right... easier said than done. Faith is easy to exert when everything is fluid and moving smoothly. Faith is that back up against the wall type stuff. Faith is the nothing left in your account and you still manage to write a faith check when the pastor calls for it at the alter. Faith is believing that God will provide healing when 3 doctors tell you that you won’t make it. Faith is looking in the face of death and saying you know your God will take care of you. Faith is knowing your unemployment benefits will expire soon, but sow a seed into the life of someone else. Faith is waking up every morning believing God will provide fresh manna from Heaven like before. Faith is moving to a new city with no sight of a job and knowing that God will open up a door. Faith is saying that you will be debt free by the end of the year and not believing anything different. Faith is that radical level of thinking. All of that makes God's heart full. He becomes so overwhelmed with emotion at your exertion of faith that He finds extra ways to bless you. It's called overflow. When you please God, you receive things that you don’t even ask Him for.

The wonderful thing about faith is that is starts within. You don’t have to order anything special online, or talk to one of the world's top experts, or even have a conference with others. You can begin operating in faith with a mere thought. It can all be done within a blink of an eye. Last week I was lying in bed and couldn't sleep. I flipped the TV on to Mike Murdock and he was talking about sowing a faith seed. He spoke about when he first began in ministry and God blessed him with his first $50. As soon as he got that money, God told him to sow it into a family in the service. He said he fought tooth and nail, but he eventually sowed that seed. On the way out of the service. A man walked up to him and shoved $50 dollars in his hand. God told him to sow the money he JUST got and he did. The next day, someone came up to him and sowed $100 to him and another couple sowed a whole new wardrobe to him. So you know what I did right? I immediately got my check book. I said, "Ok God, let me see what you're talking about. I need a sign". I wrote a check to my mom for $50 and wrote her a note to say that I was going to one day turn that $50 into $500,000. She was in tears and said she blessed the seed. So I leave to go run errands the next day and I see a small envelope addressed to me in the mail from DC. I looked at it like, "who in the world is writing to me?" I opened it up and it was letter from one of sorority sisters/spiritual partners telling me what a blessing I have been to her life and enclosed was, I will let you guess, yes, a $50 check. Within 24 hours, God had already replaced what I thought I was sacrificing. When she gave me that seed, I immediately resowed that seed into my mother. Instead of paying to get my hair done, I went and had hers done. So the next day I went to my favorite consignment shop to look for winter coats and cute pieces and I was able to get everything I wanted for $20. If I showed you what I bought, you would think I was a professional liar. lol. No one can beat God in a math game. He's a master of it all.

You see, it was never about the $50 for God, it was all about the faith. It was the faith that God would replace all that I have sown above and beyond what I could ever ask or think. No matter what the numbers look like, God's math always reigns supreme. Regardless of what I may have wanted to happen, God has always been in total control. I have seen God take the little that was in my hand and make it much more in His. It didn’t happen until I let go though. All the things I have ever wanted have come from believing. Whether it has been something material like a coat, a car, or a pair of shoes, or something more substantial like a scholarship, a spiritual breakthrough, or healing in my body. God has shown me that when I totally surrender, He can truly go to work on my behalf. I think about when I was little and I wanted my dad to fix something. I never doubted that he couldn't do it. I would be like, "Here daddy, you fix it," and he would say "ok baby girl, daddy's got it". No doubt, I knew it would be done. Not one worry.

The same thing with God. We can’t say God fix this marriage, this relationship, this job situation, this pain, and then keep looking over His shoulder to make sure He is working on it to our liking. That's not how He operates. He wants to know that we trust Him totally. No sense in giving it to God if we still have our hands on it. That's not how the mechanic works is it? Does the watch repair man ask you to come behind the glass counter to work on your watch with him? Does the doctor allow you to be awake during major surgery? No. Surgery is his area of expertise and you trust him to work it out right? Right. The same with God. God's most earnest desire is to do a complete work in us. From start to finish, He wants us to be all that we can be. He already believes in us, it is up to us to believe in Him. Once we line up with what He believes, even the sky won’t be the limit.

After the year I've had, nothing really shakes me like it used to. I know that God has a total plan for my life. A plan that I have nothing to do with. After witnessing my father take his last breath, I know that God has a total different plan that I have ever imagined. On March 12th, 2010, I totally took off my rose colored glasses and looked at life for what it was. No longer was I consumed with the shoulda, coulda, and wouldas. I knew in that very moment that the purpose was in me couldn't end up in a white bag, being shipped off to a morgue. I knew that if I didn’t trust God totally, I could end up living life in circles. I refuse to be that person. If no one else had faith, my daddy did. That's how I know God is a God that operates on His own plan. Some things can’t be explained or put into words. But in the very moment my father died, something in me began to live. My faith took a life of its own. I began to see God in a totally different light. I saw God as this massive figure with a plan of His own. Every dream board, dream book, and dream book mark I had made for 2010 didn’t have my dad missing from it. In that very moment, God showed me that just because things happened that weren't in my plan doesn’t mean they weren't a part of the overall plan. From that day on, faith was all I had because faith was all I knew. Many people thought my faith would waiver, but instead it started to get stronger as the days went on.

The Word says faith without works is dead right? (James 2:20) So everything we do should show our faith in action. So if I believe God for a trip, I should always have my luggage ready. If I believe God for a job, I should already have my work clothes separated in my closet. If I believe God for a husband, I shouldn't be giving my body away to every man I meet, right? Right. I should still be moving according to what I believe God wants for my life. If something is not in His plan, then it won’t come together. If it is, then it will be. Can't fret over things I can't change, that's the bottom line.

Faith is one of the most powerful, underrated tools we possess as believers. We must hold on to what God promised and never stop believing. If you do nothing else... keep holding on...!

Moving in faith and looking beyond my right now...

~Mel