Journal Entry ~ 12/23/18

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  - Isaiah 9:6

He is our powerful and Mighty God. We look at a desperate situation as hopeless, but God says nothing is impossible. All things are possible with our Mighty God. 

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26 NIV)

I am living proof that Our God is Mighty. My life is one God at work story after another, beginning with my salvation story ~ He grabbed my heart when there was no one in my life preaching the gospel to me, in fact there was no evidence of Him at all in my life. I was in a Godless marriage, living a Godless life. But God.  Our Mighty God got a hold of me despite my circumstances and prompted me to surrender my life when everything in my life countered that decision. From an outside perspective, you would have looked at my life and thought it was impossible to get a hold of my heart. But with God, all things are possible. He is a Mighty God. 

When I pause and look and my life, I am just so blessed with story after story of how God has been faithful to fulfill His promises. My story is a story of hope that doesn't let go in the deepest struggles of life, my story is a story of love that doesn't give up on me despite my foolishness and selfishness. My story is a story of abounding grace though underserved, and never ending mercy, justice, and kindness shown to me in my greatest times of need. It's a story of life that isn't mine, my story is a story of rescue. I didn't always have a story, and there was a time when I only had a few, small stories, but through obedience and faithfulness, He has given me a lifetime of stories of His faithfulness to me. I am and will be eternally grateful that we love a Mighty God. 

Every salvation story is a demonstration of His great Might. We fall to our knees and raise our hands in acknowledgment His great Might when He reaches into our hearts and draw us to surrender our lives to Him....but then somehow, we move past our own salvation, and we forget our Mighty our God truly is. 

I think this happens because we have expectations for how God should work in our life and the lives of those we love, and when it doesn’t happen the way we want, we begin to discount the Might of our God. In this world of immediate gratification, it's easy to get wrapped up in our frustration at God not answering our prayers in the way we want Him to. Some read scripture like this, and think: I can pray for what I want, I can pray for those miracles, and God will grant them because He can do the impossible. So, we pray for stuff, and that stuff doesn't happen, or He puts us in a difficult situation that we don't thing is fair to us, and we get frustrated.  

Trusting God's sovereignty on those days is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian, but it is ultimately one of the most peace-giving, strength-building, hope-bringing things that we can do. The problem is that most of us fail at understanding how to trust His plan. We say we want it, but we fail at carrying it out. 

To truly trust in God is a surrender to His plan - whatever He May bring in to our lives, we accept His plan is best for us. We don’t get a say in what that will be, but we can know with complete confidence that’s whatever it is that He chooses to allow will be for our good.  

I have found an amazing peace and strength as He has drawn me closer to Him through my trials. I have learned to trust in His Might in the chaos of my most difficult trials, rather than expecting Him to respond to the situation the way I want Him to. I've trusted that He has a plan that I can't fully see yet, and I have just been so blessed. It's difficult to even put into words. We need to remember something very important ~ sometimes we pray for miracles in our lives, but sometimes the miracles arrive through God's formation of Christ-like character in our own lives through those trials.  

We face so many situations in our lives that bring feelings of defeat ~ he'll never change, she'll never apologize, I'll never get out of this mess. But I know the God I love is the God of miracles and impossibilities. He has turned countless situations around in my life that seemed like dead ends at the time, and the best part is He does it in a way that I couldn't have even imagined facing the trial. We must not allow defeat to take over our hearts when faced with an impossibility or a difficult trial, we must let our hearts take courage and trust He knows the way out. He's bigger than anything we face in our lives. Don't tell God how big your mountain is, tell your mountain how big your God is.  We love a Mighty God. 

Press on ~ you are loved 💗