Show and Tell

 

 

 

A child may proclaim, “I can tie my shoes!” Our response, “Show me!” The assurance of seeing those little fingers deliberately and correctly make that bow is a celebration and a certainty that indeed, that little one can tie their own shoes. Their confidence becomes your confidence.

How many Bible verses might you know or recognize? There are countless times where I think I know a verse and when it comes down to it, if I were to try and say it out loud, I’d likely get it jumbled up. I may know key words or the idea in it, but I may not get it down solid enough to recite it. I rarely know where it’s found. I depend a lot on the internet to help me with that.

When put on the spot it’s hard for me to pick a verse out from my mind. If I’m hearing a lot of verses, I can easily get them mixed up with one another. If someone tells me where the verse is found and I go and look it up and read it, I think, “Oh, yeah, that’s it!” Then I’m certain.

Struggles in faith come in various ways. We can be one hundred percent certain on our belief in God and know what He says. We can know the Word. I know in His Word, it says how He is faithful. God says He is good and He tells us to be bold and courageous. He says we can have confidence in Him and that He provides.

These last few years I feel like I have had many waves of trials. You may have too. This last bout all but hung me out to dry. I had no strength to find hope anymore. I was heartsick. There was a sadness like I had not known before. I was asking for prayer and spending time in prayer, but I had hit the wall and only kept in prayer out of knowing that even in hopelessness, I was not going to let go of my relationship with God.

Battle worn and having raised the white flag of surrender months ago, a friend just came to town for the weekend. She dropped by to see me for a couple of hours while she was here for some family functions. Her time was more precious than she could have known. She came into my home full of her faith, smiling, strong and speaking of God’s great goodness, abundance and blessing of His faithfulness to her. She was confident in who He is and was bold in that confidence. I knew her through some serious hardships and I told her how incredible she is in the fullness of her faith. She laughed and said, “I’m in between trials.”

Her joy and confidence in God’s faithfulness shifted me. My heart began to hope again. He had fulfilled much in her life and was continuing to do so.  She was showing me the confidence that God is faithful, He is good, and we can live in courage and boldness for all that He provides. She showed me those things through her presence and life. She was living in that and shared how He had, one by one, provided the desires of her heart.

Proverbs 13:12  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

God tells us what to do and not to do through the Ten Commandments. We saw people failing all over the place in their inability to fulfill them in the Old Testament. People were always in need of correction and would fall into slavery because they were weak and not steadfast on Who God is to them. God told them how to be and what to do, but they messed it up over and over again.

Then, He came as Christ. He came to show us and demonstrate love. He came to free us from the sin we fell slave to. We got to see Him and how He lived. He showed us.  After He died and rose, He gave us His Spirit to give us the power in Him to live as He did. He showed us. He showed us Who He is and that He is that; faithful, powerful, providing in mercy and grace and full of love.

He showed us how to die to self. Sometimes those trials are the very thing that He uses to show us how to be like Him in enduring them and not giving up our relationship with God. As He suffered, He still cried out and lastly said, "Into your hands I commit my spirit." And then, new life! 

John 15:19-21  19Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. 20"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.

Jesus showed us. And when we are at our limits, He will show us Himself again and we will marvel.

This time He showed Himself through my friend and her testimony of Him.

You could be carrying the hope of Him within you for someone else. Let your life shine for Him and not just tell of Him. Show Him in your confidence and in His peace and love. And if you are feeling like you are at your last, He knows.  He is faithful and He will show Himself. One day you may be saying, “I’m in between trials.”  And He will still be faithful.