I am delighted to have my friend Trish Cordell share with you on the blog today. We became friends through the Proverbs 31 Online Bible Studies and then met in person last summer at the She Speaks Conference. She is such a blessing. Please lift her up and encourage her in the comment section today. I also encourage you to check out her blog.
Have you ever huffed on an apple, and then rubbed the apple on your sleeve? Did you ever notice how much shinier that spot on the apple became?
Have you ever put wax on your car? First you have to wash your car, get all the dirt and grime off it. Then you have to ensure the car is dry. You do another once over with your eyes making sure no dirt was left behind because you don’t want to scratch the car by rubbing dirt into the paint.
Putting wax on your car is more than just slapping some wax on it. You have to use a damp, lint free cloth, and apply the wax either in small circles or from side to side using a small wipe pattern. After you put the wax on, you have to let it dry. Once it’s dry you can see the film over the car has left it dull. When you wipe the wax off, you have a beautiful shine on your car.
How about silver? Have you ever polished silver? I don’t own any silver, but I worked for a place that had lots of it. Oh my goodness, let me just say polishing silver is not one of my favorite things to do. You truly have to put in some work to make your silver shine!! Before I polished the silver, I thought it looked just fine. I was for certain the silver items were good to go!! Seriously, who needs to polish silver?
My employer brought the silver pieces to the counter over by the sink. She filled the sink with a little soapy water. She grabbed the tub of polish that would be used on the silver, then grabbed the sponge and was ready to show me why we polish silver. Little did I know my car waxing skills would be coming into play. The sponge for the polish also needed to be damp. Then you put the polish on the silver piece in little circular motions with, as my employer said, “muscle” behind it. It was then I was thinking, “why do people own silver?”
Let me just say, I could barely believe my eyes when I saw how much shinier the silver looked. I believe my mouth even opened in disbelief. I could totally see the difference in the shine compared to the lackluster tarnish that had covered up that beautiful shine.
Much like those possessions, our faith can become dulled by the circumstances we deal with every single day. Our Jesus light becomes dull and tarnished when we stray too far or become buried in the muck and mire of sin. Faith and hope fade into the darkness, joy vacates our being, and love seems unattainable. How can we give love, when we can’t receive love?
There’s a big difference between polish on the outside versus the inside. Our faith is polished from the inside out. Digging in God’s Word, (polish), letting it transform our minds, (applying polish), receiving and believing (removing polish), then practicing what we’ve been taught allows our Jesus light to…shine. Faith and hope take stage left and stage right, joy radiates from our souls, and love pours out in abundance and Jesus is right where He should be…center stage for all too see.
Lackluster faith will no doubt get you through life. I don’t know about you, but I want more than just “getting by” faith. I want faith that will move mountains.
Mark 11:23 says “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea, ‘and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”
It’s not enough to just read it, or even say it, you have to believe!! We were made to shine! We were made to glorify the One who made us. We were made to have faith that moves mountains! Where’s your faith my friends?
Pingback: Lackluster Faith | Blessed to be Broken
Good after noon ladies, I love todays post, talking about Faith, something that we all need to have more of, I can remember when I didn’t apply my faith the way I should, but I thought I was,Believe in something you don’t see, Mmmmm , I can remember how at times in my life that was a difficult thing to do, although I said I had faith, I said i was believing god for what I needed done or for this or that, but some how when i didn’t see the move of god on that issue I was trying do work that thing out on my own But you know the situation only got worse, so I decided that I needed to read the word of god to see what he had to say about it, and that’s the only way we get to increase our faith is to stay in gods word and believe in him, whether we see the thing being answered or not, I remember the story in Matthew 17 where the man brought his son to Jesus to be healed of the Epilepsy, because he had already taken him to the disciples for them to heal him but they couldn’t, & the reason they couldn’t was because they had no faith in their abilities to do what Jesus said we could do. Verse 20 says that, because of the littleness of your faith( that is your lack of firmly relying trust) for truly i say to you , if you have( that is living) like a grain of mustard seed you can say to this mountain , move from here to yonder place & it will move and nothing will be impossible to you .I believe it was (1990) that i was diagnosed with Multiplesclerosis that thing hit me like a bolt of lightning, at work i had just walked away from my last patient of the evening and i hit the floor, couldn’t move couldn’t talk at least no one could understand me, in my mind i thought I had suffered a stroke, so in to the hospital i went by ambulance they put me through every test imaginable and found nothing, i stayed there for days and weeks and month, finally they sent me home same way I came in by ambulance, still in same condition drs didn’t know what it was but stroke had been ruled out, so my family came to see me at home and my brother picked me up put me in his car and off i went to yet another hospital wasn’t home for a day, so this hospital did one test which was lumbar puncture, same test at other hospital and there they diagnosed me with M.S. went through more tests & finally after 4 weeks there i had to go to rehab for 5 weeks learn how to walk again how to dress myself speech therapy etc. well after being discharged i went home cause all i heard was she not going get better it only gets worse, and some one will have to look after her children, (Nope wrong ) the devil is a liar… I really had to trust god for my healing if i wanted to get out the bed and gain my independence so i could care for my own children,, so my faith had to grow and grow it did, I had the faith to believe god would heal me that i would walk again that i would gain back my eyesight and I would most of all be a testimony to others that, what ever you’re going through in life you must have FAITH… god is no shorter than his word, and I know boy how I know it can be tough sometimes but, it works if you work it…. Faith with out works is dead.. you can have faith but if you don’t work it it wont work for you….. god bless you..