Still?



Happy Saturday!

I was enjoying some sunshine in the garden today and this verse really caught my attention.

1 Peter 1:8 (KJV)
Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

 What struck me was the simple phrase YET BELIEVING.   The passage is speaking of Jesus who we haven't seen in person.  However, despite that fact, those of us that are Christians have chosen to still (yet) believe in him.

Many times we cannot see how God can get us out of this situation or that problem, and so we go to worrying or fear, or our own devices to try and figure it all out.

A fan of golfing was watching Tiger Woods play.   He was near the hole and had brought his putter out. He spent ages walking back and forth, looking this way and that; crouching down, standing up.  The fan was getting a bit frustrated "Take the shot!!!"  If Tiger Woods was so good what was he messing around for?  Finally, Tiger takes the shot but he putts the ball in completely the opposite direction to the hole!
The fan jumps to his feet shouting at the TV "You've hit it the wrong way!  All that messing and look what you've done!"  As he watched, the ball rolled away and then came rolling right back around and into the hole.

The point; the viewer didn't have the same perspective as Tiger.  There was a slope!  And Tiger knew the right way to get the ball to where it was going.  God is like that, we don't always have his perspective, and we have to trust that he knows the perfect way to get us where he wants us, even if it seems to us like the wrong direction.

Even when we can't see the way forward, we can STILL BELIEVE. 

What I really liked about the end of this passage is this;  because we are YET BELIEVING, we can rejoice with 'joy unspeakable and full of glory' (KJV). Other translations render this as:
(GNT) So you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express
(NLT) ...and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy
(TPT) ...you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory.

Being a Christian is a wonderful position to be in at a time like this. Why?  Because even if we have no idea is going on, we can YET BELIEVE in the promises of God, and we can get to praising God and rejoicing, really rejoicing, even before we see the answers come to pass.

In another place the bible puts it this way: Mark 11:24 (TPT)
"This is the reason I urge you to boldly believe for whatever you ask for in prayer—believe that you have received it and it will be yours."

Believe that God has heard your prayer, has seen your situation and knows exactly what you need!  This is faith.   Faith causes us to rejoice in what we have not yet seen Hebrews 11:1 (TPT)
Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.

What that means is that as people of faith, we may not know what is happening right now.  We may not be able to see the way forward, or how this is all going to pan out, but we have a choice:
A) Focus on all the uncertainty, worry about the future, be fearful or angry or
B) Despite the situation, YET BELIEVING we can praise God and rejoice KNOWING that he is going to order our steps, guide us and accompany us every step of the way! 

I know which is the better option!

Have a great rest of your weekend.

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