I was close to crying.
I had just had a very productive day, I believe, but I was very hungry. I didn’t eat the whole day, and no, I wasn't fasting. I just didn’t have enough to eat more than I could afford to spend on currently, and it has to be a meal that could carry me till about the same time the next day. I had planned to buy ‘moi-moi’ (bean pudding) with what I had left. I got off the bus with mixed feelings. I love moi-moi, but I didn’t like the fact that a lack of resources was making me choose to have it with garri (cassava flakes). I didn’t want to acknowledge the feeling, so I strove not to think about it. What a weird way to overcome discouragement!
I saw the sellers packing up, and my sixth sense told me the inevitable: I might have to eat only soaked garri unless I find another seller for the same amount I had. I still asked the sellers if it was finished, and my premonition was right.
At that point, my mind was painting more vividly the picture of lack that I was surrounded by. I tried to remember the miracles I’ve experienced before and realized that they almost had no effect on helping me believe God would provide. He could, but would He? I dunno. With what? Those kinds of questions popped up. I wasn’t hopeful, and I wasn't worrying either. I was just in a hazy fix.
A lump was forming in my throat, and I stiffened my jaw to prevent the tears from forming and spilling eventually. How I did my best not to worry but still didn’t trust in the Lord or hope to have my needs met bothered me.
Does this sound like something you’ve experienced? Have you ever received a miracle so mentally striking that you were sure you’d never doubt God? Yet you are faced with the same situation in which you received a miracle before, and you forgot that miracle, or even if you remembered, you just couldn't hope for a miracle in this same situation? You've probably found yourself in those situations where the seemingly unending issues around you made you forget you'd experienced miracles for similar issues before or found it difficult to hope that you could experience the same miracles again.
Did God leave? Does He see? How do I get past this? What can I do? When will it end? Questions like these replace the principles of praise and confession. So much so that even when we try to do them, we realize we almost don’t believe in them; we just go through the motions. Then we find ourselves subconsciously wondering, Do I believe? But He’s done it before. How would he do it again this time? Why can’t I believe He can? Do I always have to face these same issues and wait for Him?
I’m reminded of the wilderness journey story of the children of Israel hundreds of years ago. As far as I'm concerned, these people accused, insulted, and enraged Moses for bringing them out of the penury they lived in in Egypt because they were thirsty, hungry, and exhausted. Which I understand perfectly. If you’ve ever gotten dehydrated, you’d understand.
However, isn’t it ironic? That these same people watched something so magnificent as a 1610ft deep sea being parted on either side of them for them to walk on totally dry land. You might want to check how tall that is, maybe with buildings.
I wondered what kept Moses going—that he could lead these people without showing discouragement and disbelief as they did. Oh, they were loud about it! These same people had food (manna and quail) fall daily to feed them and watched water gush from a rock to hydrate and refresh them, yet they molded a calf and called it God when Moses would not come back from His timeout with God. How could they? But don’t we fall into that trap still? The differences becoming civilizations.
I saw that forgetting the miracles, disbeliefs, and discouragements wasn't the problem; they were just a variety of expressions of the bigger problem. The problem wasn’t even about faith in God; that’s secondary.
As I listened to a sermon, thought, and wrote, I realized why and what made Moses different from these people. And what the problem really was.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
-David (Psalms 103:7)
These people had no idea who God was. If they had an idea, that was all it ever was. An idea. I couldn't blame them. With four hundred years in slavery to the Egyptians, the generations that knew the Lord had most likely passed on, and with their deaths came another generation born into the slavery. How could they know? You know, experience can teach you your own opinion. But is it always true? What paradox, then, is it?
But then again, it teaches that our response to situations is not first a question of the situations, nor of who we are, but of what, in fact, who we believe in and a constant reminder. And is there a belief without a knowing in which to be confident?
A vast majority of believers do not know who they call God; they know what He can do, has done, and will do. This reality makes all the difference between the strong faith of the early church and the believers of today.
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
-Paul (2 Pet 1:16)
Paul, who would write letters, praise, and pray even more than all the believers in Corinth put together, all in a prison, hardly ever complaining about his situations, tells us how he counts every accomplishment as dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Phil 3: 7-9). What exactly did he know that he didn’t hold his situations so highly to complain? Rather, WHO exactly did he know?
The answer to who God is is a flawed one. Every religion was born out of that quest, seeking to answer, Why earth? Why humans? Why suffering? Why death?
But only one thing did answer correctly, in fact, a human, the man Jesus, as God walking the earth.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John, the beloved (John 1:14)
I’ve come to terms with the fact that suffering will abound. What’s worse is that suffering is what humans make out of unlikely situations that they can’t endure. It makes more sense, the song that says, “I still got joy in chaos”. A joyous heart in chaos wouldn’t consider the societal standard of suffering as suffering but just another life experience. But in all these, what makes believers shake is not that they don’t believe or that they don’t remember miracles.
It's simply that they don’t know WHO their faith hinges on, or the knowledge of Him is diminishing in their memories. I don’t mean personal knowledge of him, I mean it as a sense of the nature of who God is.
It's simply that they don’t know WHO their faith hinges on.
I reckon that our response in trying times will change when we understand who God is—not what he does or how his attributes can make our situation better. You know how we call him faithful? because we want him and believe him to show up again, or because he keeps us from falling? But hardly because we trust that even if we fall from the grand plan we have for our lives, He remained.
I believe God wants to be known, not used.
I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
-God, (Jer 32:27)
When God said this through Jeremiah, I realized it wasn’t a question of if anything was really hard for him to do, but a question of the first phrase….I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Do you really KNOW me? if you do you’d know magic or miracles are bread.
And if Christianity would make sense even to an unbeliever, we must know its author. At least we’d see better the perspective He had in mind when Faith was created.
I’m glad he didn’t leave us clueless. God walked among us in the person of the man Jesus, and the curation of the gospels gives us a history to reckon with.
The gospels are a good place to start, and because I want to go on that journey of reminding myself of what I know about God, I thought you might be interested in being a part of that journey, so I created a community -Through the gospels.
And if Christianity would make sense even to an unbeliever, we must know its author.
You are welcome however you are: struggling in the faith, thriving in the faith or even obnoxious to the faith. Questions led us to either of the states we find ourselves in. In the gospel, I believe we’ll find answers.
If you missed the link before, join here, as you decide to give your commitment on this long journey of learning about God, one chapter a day. The group will be disbanded one 2 occasions:
When responses are bellow average.
When we commit and complete the gospels (John, Luke, Mark, Matthew).
You welcome!!!
Hi, I”m Judy-Nichole, today’s contributor for Wise sayings. I hope this blessed you as it did me as I wrote. Please share.
See you next week (it maybe me or someone else. Whatever God leads).
Ciao.
Beautiful.
Thank you Judy