Faithbase

Hey friends, I hope everyone is having a great morning or afternoon or evening whenever you're watching this. It just happens to be morning as I'm recording it, but just wanted to pop on, my husband and I just had a really cool breakthrough as we were talking about our quiet time this morning. So last night our puppy decided to jump up on our countertop where I had some bread that I had baked, or cooked, or made, rising on the counter. So it was just the dough on the counter, she gets up on the counter, eats the dough, we're not even sure how much of it she actually eats, reach out, take her to the emergency vet, the emergency vet is not there, it'll be at least six hours, what we really need to do is just get her to throw it up, so my husband and I pray, and literally as we bow our heads to pray, she starts throwing up. I know that's disgusting and that's a weird thing to pray, but no prayer goes unheard friends, no prayer goes unheard. So then this morning my husband and I were talking, he's going through some, not catastrophic, but just some pretty stressful decisions and stuff at work, and so a lot of things happened yesterday, and he was like, you know, I need to remember that God is testing me, that prayer works, it worked for Gracie last night, it'll work in this situation, and it caused me to think about the verse in James where it says that we're going to know trials of different kinds, but let the trials be tests of your faith, and we know that a testing of the faith produces perseverance, and perseverance, what is it, consider it pure, yeah, hold on, consider it pure joy brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that testing of your faith produces perseverance, the trial is testing your faith, God is not testing your faith, I had a misconception of that verse of like, well, God's given me a hard time so that I can learn some lessons, that's not at all what that verse is saying, what that verse is saying is the trials are going to come, Jesus says this, the trials are going to come, but take heart, I have overcome the world, how do we take heart and trust that he's overcome the world, we can persevere in that moment, we can go to him in prayer that opens our eyes to see him at work, so for example, my husband sees God answer prayer as he saw my dog throw up, again, the weirdest example, however, he saw God work through prayer, so the next trial that came up this morning, he knew, wait a second, God answers prayer, I can lean on that, that's going to cause me to pause, and it's going to cause me to pray about this situation at work, on a physical level, it gives you a clear mind to help you figure out what steps to take, if there are any, about the situation that you're in, and until it's figured out, it gives you a steadfast peace that surpasses human understanding, even though you're not in, you're not through whatever the trial is yet, then the next trial that comes up, you now have two examples to lean back on of God's faithfulness, that is what produces perseverance, God doesn't strike us with plagues of issues in life in order to watch us squirm until we learn, that is not at all in keeping with the character of God throughout the rest of scripture, and that's not even what that verse was saying, it's saying the squirmy situations, they are coming, you get to practice your faith, and we know that practice leads to, not perfect, we say that, but we're never going to be perfect at this, but you get what I'm saying of when we practice going to God in prayer for all things, it becomes our auto response, we begin to look for God's guidance in the situation, rather than the knee jerk, oh my gosh, what do I do, how do I get in there, fix this problem, we turn instead of inward into self for the answers, it gives us a habit, a posture of default looking to God, instead of looking to ourselves, and I just think that's just absolutely beautiful, so, whatever you're facing today, take it to the Lord in prayer, I hope you don't have to pray for throw up like I did, but regardless of what it is, remember He will answer, and then kind of keep a track record of all of those miracles.