FAITH OR ROULETTE

Faith is such an escalated challenge.  One can't just give a task or a need a mediocre effort; if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't.  That isn't faith.  That's roulette. Confidence that God works, supplies, and responds is crucial to one walking by faith...and not by sight.

There is a difference in possessing a vision of what we can do from believing what God can do.  The former tries to collect the best attributes of man's best ideas.  The latter waits on God with even a stronger certainty that He has both the know-how coupled with delivery power.

The age-old prophet Elijah (I Kings 18) was surely one of God's prized servants.  The land was in the midst of extreme drought.  Famine had spread.  Yet, he believed what God had told him.  Rain was a-coming.

Elijah settled for a moment atop of the mountain, put his head down, and instructed a servant to go look to see if the rain was coming.  There was nothing (:43).

Nothing.

How many times have you prayed and you feel like you had gotten nothing?  How many times have you believed for naught?  This is not an uncommon experience among God's children.  This can cause our faith to move into the very drought we were facing in the first place.

So Elijah told the servant to go back.  Look again.  Nothing.  Again?  Still nothing.  Not until the seventh time did the servant begin to notice a tiny cloud the size of a hand moving in their direction.  Seventh try.  This one followed six failures.

And just how many efforts does it take to sink your ship?  One for most?  Two for some?  Three maybe for a slim few.  But seven?  Just how slow does one think we are before we catch on to the truth our effort isn't God's will?  Such a question causes abortion of the blessings of God.

Is something wrong with our faith?  Yes, if we give up on door #2 or #5 in praying, checking, looking, enduring.  In such cases there is very much something wrong with our faith.  We have shifted to want microwave results; ask and you shall receive NOW.

Do not give up.  Never quit.  Send someone out to scout, as Elijah did his servant, to see if God's hand can yet be seen.  Even in the midst of whatever drought you are in, God knows how to provide.

Our problem is not that God is hit-and-miss with His supplying.  Our problem is we want response and we want it now and if it doesn't happen we then haphazardly and immaturely conclude that there must be something lacking in God.

Is something wrong with our faith?  Only if we give up too soon.  Otherwise, as did Elijah and the entire land, refreshment is surely on its way.