Faithfulness vs. Feelings (part 2)

God is faithful.  Every time, all the time, God is faithful.  He will always show up.  He will always be there.  God never turns His back on His children.  No matter what we feel, God’s faithfulness is pure, and always shows up when we don’t expect it.  Even when we doubt Him, God is in the business of proving His love for His children.

When I was a teenager, I went out with some friends of mine.  It was late at night, and I should have already been home.  On the way back, we ran out of gas.  To say the least, it was not an ideal situation.  None of the guys with me had a cell phone, so I walked back up the dark road to a gas station (which had already closed for the evening) and made a collect call to my father.  Even though I woke him up in the middle of the night, he said “I’ll see you in a minute!”  As I sat on the side of the road, I soon saw his headlights topping the hill.  After many years of knowing my Dad, I knew he would show up and make everything ok.

Our heavenly Father is the same way.  Several weeks ago I wrote an article entitled “Faithfulness vs. Feelings.”  In the post, I explained that no matter how we feel during our walk with Christ, God is always faithful.  Today, I was able to see that first hand.

At this stage of my life, God has me in a holding pattern.  Week after week, day after day, I have been praying for God to answer a prayer that He has placed on my heart to pray.  Each day I wait patiently for the answer to this prayer, and each day I hear God say “Not today!”  For some reason, I woke up this morning extremely discouraged and disconnected from God.  That is honestly how I felt.  What God reminded me in His word this morning is “I am faithful!  It doesn’t matter how you feel, it matters that I keep my word!”

I began to pray early this morning for God to send me someone to encourage me.  Two different guys called me (both were in a Bible study I led this past spring) and explained how excited they were about the Lord.  One told me how he has had the opportunity to share the gospel with several people this week.  The other one told me how much he loved his new church and how God was blessing him and his marriage.  That got me pumped!

Later this afternoon, I received a text from a good friend of mine who loves Jesus.  It simply said “I have been praying for you today, and wanted you to know how much I love you!”  God sent these folks today to encourage me.  Even though my “big” prayer hasn’t been answered yet, God was faithful to answer the little one.  He encouraged me all day long!

Here are a few things I learned today:

• Never underestimate the power of prayer.  Call your heavenly Father and tell him when you are out of gas.  He will always say “I’ll see you in a minute!”

• Never underestimate the words “I love you!”  Tell others these three words.  Mean it.  You never know how bad someone may need to hear them.

• Pray for each other.  When God lays it on your heart to pray for someone, then stop what you are doing and pray.  I don’t know how it works, but I do know that it does work.  God wants us to pray for one another.

• God is always God, and God is always good.  He is in the business of remaining faithful no matter what we feel.  Praise God!