Sunday 6 May 2018

What if God lets your problem to stay a little bit longer to teach you something?

Photo Credit : https://www.crosscards.com/cards/scripture-cards/faith-can-move-mountains-matthew-17-20.html

Matthew 17 : 20
"You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

This is a very well-known and often most-cited verse when it comes to the topic of faith and problems. We always look at our big problems as the mountain. 

For example, one guy is trying very hard to find himself a decent job, but he has not been getting interview calls, and even when he did, he wasn't able to do the interview well, which in turns resulting in him being rejected by the company; and the cycle goes on. To him, acing the interview is his big mountain, and he thinks to himself maybe if he has a little bit more faith, pray more, then he will overcome this mountain and miraculously get a job he desires. Nothing wrong with having more faith and praying more asking for God's divine intervention, but what if, acing the interview is not the only mountain he needs to overcome, what if there are other mountains (for example his attitude towards his interviewers during interviews, or his skills that need to be polished) he fails to see but God wants him to overcome those other mountains first before the gigantic one. And what exactly do I mean by that... 

Often times, we get fixated on our problem or the breakthrough that we want to achieve and blindly use this verse as a weapon or "blackmail" in our prayers, saying something like "Lord I have faith that I will overcome this problem, I believe it Lord, please let this problem go away, because I have faith that it will." But what if He lets this mountain to stay for a little bit longer so that He can teach us something or so that we can overcome other smaller mountains first, mountains that we overlooked thinking they are not a problem but little did we know, they can be a problem in the future if not addressed properly. For easier explanation I'm gonna use my story as an illustration :) 

Okay so most of you know that I have a clothing line business, however at this point of time I cannot say that it is doing very well or it has reached a certain number of followers on the social media platform or that the monthly revenue is always mind-blowing throughout the year - and I'm fine with it, at least now, after I realised about this faith-and-mountain thing. Up until last month, I often found myself being overly sad if I feel that the business is not doing well, I would pray asking God for the breakthrough and I thought it was alright to be sad about it. But recently I realised something else. Yes I need a breakthrough and yes this thing is my mountain right now, but even though this mountain is still present, throughout these past few months that I've been feeling sad, actually I've been removing other smaller mountains like for example the ability to learn from mistakes, getting back up after feeling down, the ability to be humble and take in advices from others, to name a few. 
I know that it is very easy for God to suddenly pour me with so much orders that I can't even handle it on my own, or for Him to suddenly multiply my business overnight. However, as much as I want an overnight success to happen, I ask myself again this question, am I ready for it now? Am I able to handle all those? What if He suddenly multiplies my business now because of my "faith" and because I ask in my prayers without myself knowing that I don't have any experience for the breakthrough? Then most likely, the success won't stay for long if I cannot manage it well. You see, our God is more interested in shaping our characters, preparing us for the good success that He has planned for us in the future, rather than just turning us into an overnight sensation or giving us sudden fame without any strong character or experiences as the foundation. More often than not He doesn't spoon-feed us. 

So what I'm saying is, if you are in a situation faced with a big mountain that you always earnestly pray for it to be removed, but it is still there looking at you in the eye, try to take a step back and look at yourself or your surrounding. Maybe there is something that you need to address first, "smaller mountain" that you may not realise but need to be removed first before this big mountain that you are always focusing on. Remember that everything happens for a reason and everything stays for a reason too, even problems (ha!)

I hope this helps you to take a fresher and more wholesome perspective of your current situation if you find yourself facing your mountain again and again no matter how big of a faith you think you have ;) 


God is good all the time, All the time God is good. Cheers!




No comments:

Post a Comment