By Faith...

I am digesting a sermon I heard this morning.

Hebrews 11

This passage is all about men and women who did extraordinary things though they were ordinary, real, sinful people. Each one of them accomplished something that changed the world, yet each one of them was human and fallen.

Take Noah as an example. By faith he considered himself an ark builder. God told him to build an ark; God said he was an ark builder. Because Noah believed what God said about him, he did what God told him to do.

So often there are curses and sins in our lives that have passed down from one generation to another. The idols of our fathers become our idols. The voice of these idols deafens our ears to hear who God says that we are. So we dumb down God's image inside us. We dumb down his guidance. We dumb down his equipping of us. We believe and live out things contrary to what God says about us.

Faith though means we believe and count as true what God says about us. This belief gives us power to live out what God tells us to do, and it lessens the power of the loud voices that speak contrary to that divine self-view.

I have struggled, truly struggled all my life with overeating. This is a struggle that was present in my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents. The voice of this struggle has lead me to believe things about myself and behave in ways according to those beliefs. This struggle has affected how I eat, think, dream, dress, carry myself, act in groups, and act alone. In so many ways, this struggle has altered and predicted my whole life. I have believed about myself that I am an addict who is controlled by my addiction.

The pastor ended the sermon this morning that there is something God is calling us. He is naming me. He is speaking my worth. If God is pleased by faith, then it will be in my believing this thing that he is calling me and living that out that I will feel and enjoy his pleasure. I always thought God was displeased that I overeat. Today, I realized that God is displeased because I have believed something about myself that is contrary to what he has named me, and therefore I overeat. He is displeased at my lack of faith.

So then I am faced with the question: What is it about myself that God wants me to believe? What is he calling me? What belief statement does he want my actions to stem from?

This summer these questions were posed to me at Ruby's House of Prayer in Nicaragua. When I first received the word I was excited but fearful. As the summer progressed, I doubted these names God gave me as I am not sure how to live them out in my normal context. Today, God brought those things to mind. It is time to start believing them.

God has called me:

1. A prophetess: God has called me a woman who speaks his word, who brings healing to the sick and broken, who proclaims what is, what was and what will be with the authority of Jesus Christ. This calling means that He will give me power to speak without fear, to stand in the gap for others without fear. He will strengthen me where men will not go. He will speak through me in ways that it cannot be denied that it is from him.  
2. A mother: God will give me children. He will give me many children. He will give me children that are not of my womb. He will strengthen me to mother them, teaching them, training them, and growing them into spiritual giants who are in love with the Creator of the universe. 
3. A prayer warrior: God will strengthen me to pray intimately, fervently, intensely, powerfully. God has promised that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. God will give me many powerful and effective prayers. Through prayer I will cry God's tears and feel his heart. I will be allowed to lay hands on people and pray for them and see them be healed. 

I say these things not to be arrogant, but in faith. God has called me these things. I do not call myself these things, I simply believe and declare that he has called me these things. I also want to say that like the men in Hebrews 11, I might not see these things come to be. My faith will not falter. I will continue to believe these things. No longer will I hide behind my weight and my baggy clothes. No longer will I excuse not living in these things because I am an addict. I choose to believe them. I choose to live them out.