2 Corinthians 5:7,  For we live by faith, not by sight.

If you look around at what you can see, you could easily lose hope and be overwhelmed, but we are not called to live by what we see, but by what we know about God and His character.  The more you recognize Him for who He is and His faithfulness the easier it is to keep your eyes fixed on Him in the midst of all of the craziness.

The measure of our faith can be measured by how much we trust Him.  God is faithful.   Does that mean things always turn out the way you hope or plan?  Absolutely not because God sees all and He knows what is best and that is what He is going to do.  His best is always right and best, even when you can’t see it in the moment that is where trust comes in!  Remember how the Israelites were when they arrived at the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army was coming behind them ~ they thought they would have been better back in Egypt as slaves than in the situation they were in where they had to rely on God and His answers for them.  They would never have come into their Promised Land if they had stayed in Egypt.  They would never have seen God move so mightily in their lives with the miracles He did if they hadn’t kept moving forward.  They certainly did a lot of grumbling and if we admit it, so do we, but they kept pressing forward.  Unfortunately, even though they saw Him part the Red Sea and they walked across on dry ground, and He provided food and water and shade and light in the desert, they weren’t willing to walk by faith when it came to actually taking the Promised land.  God had done such amazing things in their lives and now that the promise was theirs for the taking, they cried and grumbled and wanted to go back to slavery so God allowed the adults in that situation to die in the wilderness.

We can all learn from the Israelite’s victories and mistakes!  God has a plan as it says in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  Now, I am going to speak from my own experience here for a moment:  when you go through times of heartache, abuse, and storms in life it can be hard to pull it together and not operate out of all of that.  It takes intentional efforts to come out of that mindset and move forward again in trust, hope, and faith.  You cannot focus on where you have come from, you must focus on where God is taking you.  God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, so whatever detour you may have taken or someone else in your life has taken that dragged you through all of that, it cannot remain your focus once God has brought you out of your “Egypt”.  You must ask Him to help you learn to trust Him and His plan when you just don’t have it in you.  Life is really difficult at times and you may feel as though it has all literally sucked the life out of you, but He still has a plan and He still wants to guide you into all He created you to be.  The world wants you to focus on your pain and God wants you to focus on His plan ~ which will you choose?  When the Israelites went in to take the Promised Land, there were times when there were battles to fight, and there were times when God just went before them and fought for them and cleared the way.  He has a purpose for both so don’t get discouraged when you face the struggles, just know that He is right by your side when you are following Him!  He loves you and He wants to do great things in and through you so don’t give up and don’t give in.  Guard your heart and mind and determine to press in as you follow Him knowing that truly then His best is yet to come in your life!