"Faith is facing reality without being discouraged by it."
Read that again
"Faith is facing reality without being discouraged by it."
They are not my words, but the words of Rick Warren
that pierced my heart with such power
reminding me that
Faith is courage~
Faith is doing what you don't want to do, and doing what He tells you to do
despite what your reality is
in the moment.
Faith is courage
because it moves you beyond
what is
to
Who is
Hope
Peace
Joy
love...
Those four "Christian-ese" words
that roll off the tongue so easily
as it is
all we really want
&
all that we really need
especially
when we may have to
face a reality
that we wish wasn't the reality
that we may be facing right now.
What is your "reality" today?
Whatever it may be,
good or not so good
we all need
Faith~
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1
Faith takes courage
to take a step
forward
to
the
Hope
that
we don't see
because
hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? Romans 8:24
Hmm...
so if I don't have
or
if you don't have
what you really want to have
then
Hope
is our only option...
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:25
Faith + Hope = Courage
..and
Courage
is
what
moves ones forward in the middle of wait
because
Courage
is
Faithfully
clinging to
His Hope
His Peace
His Joy
His Love
when reality is dark & gloomy
when reality is bright and sunny
because
what we see
what we feel
here & now
is not
what our
True Reality
really is
for
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:
Trust steadily in God,
hope unswervingly,
love extravagantly. I Corinthians 13:12-13 MSG
Faith + Hope = Courage
Faith is looking discouragement right in the eyes~
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18
with our eyes
fixed on the
Unseen~
because of the
One who has
Courageously
gone before us
so that
we can
courageously
face
whatever reality
may come our way.
So let's
Put Courage into our Story
by
Putting
our
Hope
in the
One
who is writing
our Story
Faith + Hope = Courage