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Quiet Time
by Kasia Kedzia
Sometimes the most challenging thing is waiting. Waiting in the unknown while you hold your dreams close to you along with your pain and say, “God I want to give this to you but I’m having trouble letting it go. Please help me loosen my grip and give it over to you while I wait on you to make things clear in your time.”
“Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes” -Beth Moore
This quote perfectly captured how I can grapple with being faithful and lose the entire point of it. It’s not about my belief, it’s about God being who He says he is.
John 6:29 “Jesus answered, ‘the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’”
We choose what we believe in and begin to recognize lies when we know the truth. The power in the truth of God’s word is not about how long I have walked with Him. It’s how intimately I know him and how consistently I cling to his word. I can believe in Him but he calls me to believe Him.
I’ve had friends over the years that I’m less close to as a result of not getting consistent time together. We know each other and when we touch base once in a while it’s familiar and fond but we don’t experience each other regularly. Therefore, a lot of the intimacy is gone. It is the friends, near or far, that I consistently connect with and go through life with that are closest to me and who know me. I believe what they say to me, I go to them for advice, even when I don’t understand. I believe because I know them and trust they know me.
This principle applies to my relationship with God. The more time I spend in His word, consistently, the more I share my most intimate parts with Him and go to Him at all times (good, bad, etc.). The more our intimacy grows, the more I experience Him and I’m able to believe Him. Sometimes I am called to believe by taking His word for it because I know His word is good and trustworthy and He never goes back on it. Over the years I can point to direct examples in my life that support why I should believe the consistency of His character over the lie.
Matthew 9:28-29 “Do you believe that I am able to do this? Yes Lord […] According to your faith will it be done to you”
My faith impacts what God is able to do in my life. I am called to believe He is able. He is able to help me in my career, friendships, relationship, to change the things in my character that hinder me from experiencing His love and extending it more to others. Often times all I have to do is just remember He Is. This is the same God that was able to save me from my sin. The same God who answered specific prayers, provided a way when I saw none on numerous occasions, and revealed Himself to me so many times, who placed me on people’s hearts and granted me favor in their eyes, who opened and closed all the right doors. So why is it so hard for me to believe Him at times and wait on him? For me, it’s partly my pride and partly demons from my past that whisper lies. My pride tells me, “If you’re not getting your way, do it on your own.” While the demons whisper, “You’re not good enough.”
To combat the lies I am called to take every thought captive. What this means is that I need to choose to think Jesus’ thoughts instead of Satan’s, or my own prideful and fearful ones.
And when it comes to combating the lie fueled by my pride, I am called to remember that God humbles and tests me so that I can experience Him, and so that it will go well with me.
Dt8:16“He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.”
I am called to believe that He doesn't do it to bring me low and cause me to fail but to teach me how to succeed. If I see trials or tests from my perspective, I don’t view them through a lens of faith and I question God. When I can’t see a way or something seems too hard, it’s easier to give into the thought that I will fail and want to take control or self-protect and pull away. But that thought is a lie. It’s against God’s nature. Everything He does is for my ultimate good. I need to see that the ultimate good won’t always be clear in the present time or even the near future, but He will prove faithful.
Sometimes God leads me on a certain path to humble me so that I can see what is in my own heart, as he already knows what’s there. He purifies my heart.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your hearth, whether or not you would keep his commands…he humbled you…to tech a you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
I see the above scripture and can hear him saying to me, “Remember, how I have lead you for these past 17 years of your life, to humble you and test you in order to know what is in your heart; to teach you to rely on me over yourself so I could heal your wounds and bring acceptance from your grief. So that I could make you whole in me.”
So the faith that I am called to is not one I can produce by my own might, it is the faith that comes through believing in an unshakable God that has lead me each day and continues to lead me. It is fighting to exchange that truth for every lie I hear, whether it be my pride or my past, none can withstand against my God.
2 Samuel 22:2-4 “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior- from violent people you save me. “I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and have been saved from my enemies.”
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Since those first days, I have made it out of the Projects, finished my Masters degree in International Development, and moved to DC to work in my field. As a young single Christian woman my struggles today are a little different than they were when I first came to know God, but who am I kidding, not much. It's the every day battle for my heart to be pure before God, to strive to please him, and help others to seek and know Him.
Over my years of a faithful walk with God I have received much grace and compassion and have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams. Through out it all one thing has stayed consistent: God's word. Through His word I have been inspired and it has kept me faithful even when faith seemed like a foreign concept and God seemed deaf to my prayers. I started emailing my Quiet Times which helped me stay accountable as I shared my struggles and fought for understanding. Some wrote back and said they too were inspired and could relate. I hope some of my times can help inspire others who are seeking and fighting just like I am, to get to heaven and take as many as possible with me along the way.
Like what your read? Check out my blog: http://stronggirlforlife.wordpress.com/
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