Fear plagues me. What is it about being able to believe something that you can touch, taste, hear or feel? Do these things all point to having a greater assurance of something over just believing, period? (Did that make sense?) Basically put – Belief by sight versus belief by faith.

So here’s my most recent fear. And, as I sit here typing this, it seems quite ironic and ungrounded. But when you cultivate unhealthy levels of fear, this is only to be expected.

Pregnancy hasn’t been a piece of cake so far. I mean, I am so thankful that everything has gone well and its been a healthy one so far. But I have had a lot of fear of the unknown, of all the things that could go wrong. These concerns are ungrounded though. The baby (and its a ’she’) is growing just fine, and she is now strong enough to kick her mommy so that her mommy can feel it. And while I believe that I should never take a little kick for granted, I have been foolishly hanging on to these ‘felt assurances’ as the only way I can tell that this little life inside of me is still alive.
There is nothing wrong with me counting her kicks or getting worried if she’s been quiet. Its all part of being aware in the pregnancy, and as I become more and more aware of my body and the baby, the more easily I will be able to tell if something is wrong.
As I type this, Phyra Grace is kicking, and I am reminded that God is completely sovereign and in control of everything I love and hold most dear to me. My fretting is not going to help anything. Why should I need to worry about the miracle of life that GOD put inside, that GOD is knitting together, in His perfect design and according to His perfect plan? I NEED NOT WORRY! We have to take life one day at a time. That is all we can handle. If something comes up, God will give us the strength to deal with it, but I am trying to remember to focus on the ‘today’, and thank Him for it.

Whatever the circumstance you face in this life, pray that God will take away the worry or the anxiety you may have. To quote that oh so familiar song, “He’s Got the Whole World, in His Hands”. He really does. Lay down all the things that plague your conscience – maybe its not feeling like you are good enough, or fear of being left or abandoned. Or maybe its a past sin that still haunts you. Lay it down. Put it in His hands. There is no better place to rest your worries or concerns. He is the Creator and Giver of Life – He is the Sustainer. Not a thing creeps or crawls without His knowledge. There is not a thought in your head that He doesn’t know (wow, now that is convicting, huh! )
So, in this little circumstance that I have been facing, I remind myself as well, that I need to give Him Phryra Grace every day and trust that HE is sovereign and He is her Creator

Are you a believer? The Monkees wrote lyrics that playfully touched on a faith by sight kind of believing – ‘then I saw her face, now I’m a believer’. . . . But this begs the question, a believer in what? Love, we find out, in the next lines. So they didn’t believe that love existed without that sight?

This hardly follows in the mindset of what we as Christians are to believe. And we know this, God is Love (1 John 4:8). We do not have the liberty to say that love does not exist or that we do not believe in it. Love exists regardless of whether or not we believe it or not. The same follows of God. Those who say that they do not believe that God exists are tripping on their own argument, for their acknowledgment of God points to their knowledge of Him and their denial.
Peter, disciple of Jesus Christ, had a hard time believing. He loved God, but that same love got in the way of following Him. When he was asked three times if He was allied with Jesus in the same period of time prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, He denied it. Why did he do so? Well, Jesus had told him that he would, and yet, this too, Peter rebuked Jesus about. But in the end, he did turn away from God and embraced unbelief. God was gracious to him, and Peter experienced great remorse and repented for his actions. And God gave him another chance to redeem himself. He was able to profess his love for Jesus three times after His resurrection. This is sort of a bunny trail, but what I want to look at here is the character of Peter. He was loyal, but suffered from doubt. While the disciples had a hard time believing that Jesus had risen from the dead after the women went to them in excitement, the leaders had professed their fear in the fulfillment of the prophecies that had been told over and over that He would die but rise from the grave. Could it be that our knowledge of God could stumble our belief? I remember one time, when I was in a group of others and we were doing some evangelism in southern Ca. We happened upon a couple of Mormons who proceeded to turn our efforts around and we felt backed into a corner as they argued against us, and it felt like they were using our weapon. All of the sudden, they seemed to know the Bible better than we did. And believe me, it was humbling.

A childlike faith is what the Lord desires. He knows our weaknesses, and He knows that we are as blind as bats and feel the need for proof often. But the thing is, we HAVE proof – His Word is here for us, plain and simple. We see the universal Church and it should assure us that the Body of Christ is alive and kicking. We need to believe. It is a commitment. It is like when we marry. We say vows to one another, knowing that we are unable to keep them apart from the strength and the power of God. We commit to love one another – we commit to be faithful to one another. We do not know what lies ahead of us, the trials, the hardships – but we have committed to one another for both the good and the bad. It is by faith that we walk, not by sight.

I will write more of this later – these were just some thoughts that were tumbling in my head. . .