Man, I'm embarrassed. My whole life seems to be God emphasizing, "Believe, believe, believe no matter what."
I respond, "Yes, I do, I do, I will, I do."
That is, until something happens that makes it hard to believe.
Last night I found my cell phone in a pair of washed jeans that belong to my 11 year old. He didn't put it there. I did...before I washed the pants.
I turned it on and of course it didn't work.
My 15 year old says to me, "Don't worry Mom. Rice works. We've done it before."
The problem was was that earlier that night we had rice for dinner. We had only enough rice to cover half the phone. I doubted it would work. Ryan assured me we didn't need to cover the top of the phone, just the bottom part and the battery. I also was calling myself stupid over and over. Why did I put it in Hawken's pocket?
So between me kicking myself emotionally and the lack of rice, I really didn't believe it would work even though I asked God to fix it.
I took it out of the rice this morning. It didn't work at all. I knew it (I told myself).
Just in case I decided to plug it in.
As soon as I put the power source on it it worked! Perfectly!
This is just a silly thing to believe about, but I think this is where belief gets hard, when the thing I have to believe for, the thing I'm asking God to fix or the situation I want Him to show Himself in, was the result of my stupidity.
I feel I should be punished for it, that I don't deserve Him to fix it.
The funny thing is that we NEVER deserve God's mercy and grace no matter how good or sweet we are in our eyes, no matter how "good" of a Christian we are. It is always a gift.
God is asking us to believe for something even when we are the reason it is messed up!
The verse in Romans 4 says something like this: "the one who believes is blessed and God doesn't take into account his sin."
That is good stuff!