Faith-rest life is supposed to be our norm! It is our inheritance. I can’t experience this faith-rest if I am doubting. I want to know my God so well that I am sure of Who He really is and His thoughts and intentions toward me. Then I will trust His love, His words, His training and His timing. Otherwise, I stay in my familiar pattern of relying on my own reasoning and plans to work things out on my own. I don’t want to do the same things the Hebrews did in the wilderness: their doubt overwhelmed their faith and therefore they couldn’t expect God to see them through. Faith-rest should activate our faith in God’s promises. The Hebrews could have activated their faith by holding onto the truth that God kept telling them. Instead, they kept seeing their current circumstances as their reality that would remain, never changing. So their doubt held them captive, locked into their daily struggles until someone said,
“Enough! This is not what our lives are supposed to be,
always wandering and striving!”
Once they had a new understanding, they grabbed hold of the truth of what God had been saying. Then it became possible to take the risk necessary to break the cycle of doubt. They declared that they believed the promise of God.
“So we conclude that there is still a full and complete ‘rest’ waiting for believers to experience. As we enter into God’s faith-rest life we cease from our own works, just as God celebrates His finished works and rests in them. So then we must give our all and be eager to experience this faith-rest life so that no one falls short of following the same pattern of doubt and unbelief.” Hebrews 4:9-11 TPT
Sometimes it takes time to break the cycle of unbelief. Honestly we think it is easier to trust in our own way of working things out and it robs us of our future because we are so focused on making it through today. Doubt pushes us toward our own works. When we “give our all” over and over again, letting go of each anxious thought that tries to demand our all, we will begin to experience the faith-rest of knowing that God has a plan. He will reveal the truth of Who He is. With each overwhelming or subtle doubt that confronts us, He will remind us that He is eager to dispel those for us if we will let Him. So we take the risk once again to agree with Him in all that He plans for us. And little by little, and over and over again, our thought processes become transformed into His. By that we experience our faith-rest.
When the next trial breaks into your life, remind yourself that you have a wonderful Father who has already worked all of this out in His ways. He is with you throughout the trial, reminding you of who He is. You give your all again and again as you take His hand, because He will always lead you through it to the end.
