Find Faith, Hope, and Encouragement for Your Walk with God

I am playing a little catch up this week. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t quite get my three blogs last week. This was one I intended to write last week that I didn’t want to forget. I have doubts-I think if we are all honest with ourselves, we have all had doubts at one time or another. I have been prayerful, but wondered if what I prayed for was not what God had planned for me. I have questioned whether transformation, true transformation was really possible. The other night as I sat in prayer and opened my Bible, it opened to Acts 9, and I had my answer. How can we doubt transformation when you read about Saul? Saul went from persecuting all the followers of Jesus to proclaiming the name of Jesus to all who would hear. That is transformation. God chose Him and when God chooses us, what seems impossible becomes possible. The lost are found and true transformation surpasses understanding. Saul was blinded by God questioning him and his acts of persecution only to then be given his site as he is transformed. “Brother Saul, the Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here-has sent me so that yo may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again” (Acts 9:17-18, NIV)

I mentioned I have changed how I read the Bible? Each night I hold the Bible in my hands as I close the day in prayer and I pray for God to guide my hands and to speak to me. This new habit has pulled me in to not just reading a chapter or verse, but finding it difficult to set the Bible down. I am definitely in a season of hungering to learn more. Last night, as I sat in prayer, I open the Bible and it took me towards the end of Job, not the beginning, but the end. I read how God reminded Job that He is all powerful and reminds Job to not question Him. He reminds Job of His works. Finally, God restores Job with “his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10, NIV). In this season, I have read the Book of Job several times and compared to myself to Job as well as his friend. I have said that my life felt like the life of Job and then corrected myself, because as much as I am dealing with trials, I am still very much in a season of abundance. You see, I can dwell on the negative or I can recognize the blessings that God has and continues to provide.

Have you ever sat in church and just knew that the entire message was directed at you? That was me this past weekend. The Godwink part of it? The night before I had shared with one of the twins that I needed to grow my platform and work on followers to appeal to publishers more. A sidebar-I do not use TikTok nor have I ever intended to do that but as I was talking to the girls, they shared that is where a lot of social media growth occurs. The pressures to have an established platform and email lists in order to appeal to traditional publishers can be overwhelming. As I sat in church, I realized that those pressures have the risk of negating why I write. In the same week I received multiple text messages encouraging me to continue writing my blog and affirmation how some are even now seeing Godwinks where they had not seen them before. Isn’t that why I write? It is not about followers, it is not about likes-as our Pastor shared this weekend, Heaven doesn’t care how many like you had here on earth. He shared about the unsung heroes in the Bible-those that didn’t even write a book or may not even be named. I loved his last point that Heaven celebrates people that the Earth did not see. Can you imagine that in the world we live in today? What if we all chose to use our ordinary faith to encourage the faith in others, no matter the cost to ourselves? Epaphroditus is the first unsung hero in our study. In Philippians, Paul mentions him and says he will send him back. He states he was ill but God had mercy on him. He suffered, paid a price, for his faith. Then Paul closes with this and reminds us of where and when we will see our greatest joy-it is not about followers or being liked here on Earth. “So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me” (Philippians 2:28-30, NIV) Honor people like him because of their faith in Christ, because of their quiet and behind the scenes willingness to risk their own lives for the work of Christ and good of others. I think I would prefer to be that kind of hero than one that is measured by the number of likes on social media.