Do y'all ever reach a point where it's hard to have faith?
I know that in Mark that God tells us to have faith and believe, and we will receive the desires of our hearts.
What about those who have cancer, and they truly believe that they will be healed, but then they die? This confuses me. I've talked to other church members about it, and they say that a healing from cancer wasn't in God's plans for the life of the cancer patient. But that totally contradicts what the Bible tells us about believing and receiving.
I'm just tired, I guess. I try to do right (but I'm not perfect) but it seems as if things still fall apart. I have given and sacrificed so much for others. Then I see others who are ugly, they live happy and fulfilling lives.
I read so many stories about people facing tests, but very few testimonies. Do y'all ever experience real breakthroughs, just true bliss and happiness, where everything went right? I just can't go on like this, I've cried too long, and prayed too much to keep living like this. I'm so tired of doors being slammed in my face.
Others who are feeling like me, please chime in...
I know what you are saying. faith is hard to "show" if you don't have God to back it up with something---or at least it seems that way at first. For me, my belief is that God knows the true desires of my heart, even when I don't. We will be given the desires of our heart, but they must line up with God's will, if they don't, then we can't have that. My mother was a victim of cancer. She wanted the cancer to just be gone, we all did, and I am sure I am not the only one who was believing for a miracle from God to instantly heal her body. However, when she did. I knew that it was her choice to let go of the fight, because her work on this earth was done. I was the baby. She died just 5 months after I moved out on my own. her lifes work basically included taking care of kids. I was the last one and she was finished. Through her death though, I got closer to God, because she was faithful and didn't complain, all the way til the end, she knew God would have his way and his way would be the best way. I started going back to church because I wanted to be able to follow her path. If she had lived, I may have never gone back to church and maybe neither would my sister. Maybe my father(also passed now) would have never formed a relationship.(she made him promise to be more supportive of me after her death).
As for me, my testimony is this. I am faithful because I know that God's will always works out in my favor and to His glory in the end. My will, usually only benefits me, so I submit my will to God, and by faith, I believe that he knows what's right. Now for some concrete stuff:
I haven't worked since sept 2007 but God has carried me through in some miraculous ways. I have not been without anything that I needed and have been able to receive a lot of what I wanted, including upgrading my car by 9 years. My kids haven't wanted for anything. all have had great holidays and birthdays. Turns out for me that faith=trust and only when I truly began to trust that God would carry me, did he begin to show me just what awesome works he had in store for me. If you were to come to my house today, you wouldn't know that I was an unemployed single mother. You may wonder were my husband was who kept the grass cut and hedges trimmed, car washed and such. wonder how I come home with bags from the mall, wonder how I pay tithes, wonder how I keep my hair done and my kids looking good. wonder how I can keep a smile on my face and not a bit of worry in my eyes. It is all due to God making a way out of no way. He has made me look at my own situation in awe of what he has done.
It's not so much the physical things either. It's the emotional issues that I am finding to slip away from me. I am not nearly as stressed as I was when "I" was in control of my own life. Now that God is in control, I don't have to worry about it, because he is the ultimate authority. I have actually had some people that the enemy has tried to use against me to ask me how I stay so cool under the stress of the situations that they have had me in. My answer, "God". Now when you stump the devil by living as a testimony to the Lord, then that is a good feeling.
God has been directing me to read things and learn about myself in ways that I never thought were problematic, but in order to prepare me for some "thing" he has had me relaxing and focusing on who he created me to be and not the mess that I have turned myself into. I have been raised by this society to have faith in my own abilities and trust that I will just "know" what to do. But now I am reprogramming myself to have faith only in God and "know" that through him, it is already done.
