Five Things God Uses to Grow Your FaithExemplo

PRAYER:

God, sometimes it seems like the world is flipped upside down and I can’t make sense of any of it. When that happens, help me to remember that you are with me and that I can trust you no matter what. 

READING:

Pivotal Circumstances

When someone tells the story of their faith journey, you will often hear them talk about some amazing, out-of-the-blue, didn’t-sign-up-for-it circumstance. When they come out of it on the other side, they may say something like, “God did something in the middle of that that I don’t think he could have done any other way. I wouldn’t have signed up for it, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. But I’m not sure God could have done what he did in my faith except for what could be described as pivotal circumstances—a defining moment.”

Often it’s the negative, unexplainable circumstances—the very circumstances that have the potential to turn us away from God—that God leverages to do something in us to make our faith stronger. I think maybe the best illustration of this is in the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus told the disciples, “’Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe’” (John 11:14–15).

Now you might be asking, “But Jesus, are you telling me you would allow people you love to die? You would allow their sisters to sit there and watch them die just so we could have bigger faith?” To which the answer is yes. That’s how important it is to him for you to have big, audacious, strong faith in him.

After Jesus had miraculously raised Lazarus from the dead, John 11:45 says, “Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.”

Jesus didn’t simply leverage a painful situation. He created one in order to show the connection between pivotal circumstances and the growth and development of our faith. God is so honored by our faith that he will leverage anything and everything to grow it.

Just as your heavenly Father leveraged the greatest crime in history, the crucifixion of his Son, as a reference point for faith, he will leverage our deepest pain, our darkest hours, and our deepest valleys in the same way. God has chosen to use pivotal circumstances to grow our faith in him. Our responsibility involves how we are going to respond. 

REFLECTION:

How has God used pivotal circumstances in your life to grow your faith? If you are in the middle of a pivotal circumstance right now, in what ways can you see God working? 

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