“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:9 NKJ
When we packed up my mom’s house last year for her move to Illinois one of the things we came across was her prayer journals. I asked her if I could have them. She agreed but she asked me why I wanted them. I told her I didn’t know why but I just wanted to have them. I packed them up and took them with me. Several months later when I was going through a tough time I was literally in my closet, face down on the ground praying and crying out to the Lord. As I lay there a voice spoke to me and told me to look up. When I did I saw the box with the prayer journals in it. I stood up and grabbed the box off the shelf and opened it up. I took out the first journal and began to read. It was filled with page after page of prayer requests and Scriptures verses. One by one I read through the journals.
I was blown away by what I read! In the pages of those journals were hundreds of prayer requests, Scriptures, and answered prayers. I began to think of the people whose names were written, including myself, and the number of praise reports revealing God’s faithfulness to all of us! It reminded me of what Joshua said in Joshua 23:14. He said, “Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed.”
I sat there in silence thinking about the struggle I was going through where I was wondering if God was going to be faithful and answer my prayers concerning my children, ministry, marriage, and living situation. I began to cry as the Lord gently reminded me of His faithfulness and told me to recount all the times He had been faithful to me in the past. One by one I made a mental list of seemingly impossible situations where God was faithful and my heart began to be quieted and hope began to well up in my soul. My time of weeping turned into a time of praise and I began to thank God for His faithfulness and incredible love for me!
I took each prayer journal and placed them back into the box and then I got up off the floor and went about my day in a mindset of praise and adoration. Over the next several months as my struggles continued I went back to the closet frequently and read through those journals as a reminder of God’s faithfulness to His people. When God recently answered all of those prayers I had prayed that day I was filled with an awe and wonderment in my soul and a reverence for God like never before. He is faithful and He does hear and answer the cries of His people!
In times like these we have to remind ourselves of past victories so we can believe in faith for the good things that have spoken concerning us during our current situations. We have to say as David said in Psalm 18:2, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” We have to allow God’s Spirit to comfort us and allow Him to speak to us so we don’t lose heart in the midst of our distress! God loves us so much that He has given Himself to us through our faith in Jesus Christ and by the power of His Spirit at work in us to remind us of His faithfulness!
God is always faithful and not one word He has ever spoken has failed! Hebrews 1:1-4 says, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”
Jesus is sitting on the throne at the right hand of God and He is our assurance that what God says concerning us will come to pass because it is our inheritance in Him. As we allow Him to work in us and remind us of the meaning of the Cross and His resurrection we are filled with hope for the good things which God has spoken concerning us and our doubts turn into prayers of faith. This is the lesson I learned from my mom that day in my closet and this is a daily exercise of faith for me with each new seemingly impossible situation I face in life! And this is my encouragement to you today as you face your own struggles. May you have your hope renewed as you reflect on God’s faithfulness to you in the past! May your countenance change as mine did that day and may you allow Him to give you a garment of praise for your spirit of heaviness! (Isaiah 61:3)
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart focus on Your faithfulness to me. I have to believe that You see my struggles and that You are at work bringing to pass all the good things concerning me. You are so faithful to me and I praise You for being my faithful Father and I put my hope and trust in You and You alone! Amen
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