Christian Living

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This week’s newsletter is not like any I have written so far. It is more like a page out of my journal. But I do feel led to share this.

In the last 48hours, I have been in that place where that great prophet of God – Elijah found himself. Yes, in that cave where he told God how he felt so alone, abandoned and burnt out of his incessant unceasing battles against evil and to get God’s elected people (Israel) to truly and sincerely turn their hearts to God - I Kings 19:9-10.

But I went beyond Elijah’s place to the place where I literally told the Lord that the evidence before me did not verify His love for me or His commitment to answer me when I call. The facts did not support His promise that when I call He would answer me, or His promise to never let me be put to shame. Oh, I took a long and hard look at where I was and I literally built a case against the Lord, I became an accuser of the Most High.

I guess that my pains were stronger than the comfort He offered, my shame was stronger than the honour the Word promised me. In my own eyes, my life was not a reflection of one where God had proved Himself faithful and true, but rather one where He had chosen to abandon and leave me at the mercy of the enemy.

I did hear a voice tell me that my sins were the reasons I suffered so greatly. I fought this off. I know better now. But for years I had believed this lie, refusing even to accept the forgiveness that God so lovingly and graciously offered me. Then the Lord said to me,

‘If you believe that I am punishing you for the sins which you have confessed to me and repented of, then you declare that I died in vain and that my death on the cross and the blood I shed accomplished nothing as men still bear their sins and the consequences of it – death’

So, now when the enemy comes with that lie, I refuse to believe it for to do so is to state that Christ died in vain. And we know that He did not.

A lot was at risk. Like Apostle Paul, I was not prepared to preach God in a way that I had not experienced. The e-mails which are sent forth every week are written with a 100% conviction of the truth of God’s love and heart towards us all. And I felt that if in anyway I doubted the veracity of what I wrote, I would discontinue posting the articles until I was restored to the faith without which I could not write.

As I woke up this morning (by His grace of course) pondering on it all and wondering what to do next since I had decided that my storms were proof that it was time to change direction, the Lord says to me:

‘We must bring our union and relationship to that place where we can weather the storms together while in the relationship, remaining faithful and loyal to one another while we walk our way through the storms and problems.

We must not put at risk what holds us together or question one another’ faithfulness or loyalty to the other irrespective of what we feel or encounter – we must remain steadfast in our convictions of faithfulness and loyalty to one another.

You need to come to that place where you believe Me completely and are fully persuaded of my heart’s commitment to you irrespective of the storms.’

I ask:

‘Lord, even when what I experience runs contrary to Your promises?’

The Lord says:

‘Even when. Abraham believed Me and that was why when I asked for Isaac to be sacrificed, He never questioned or doubted my goodness or my heart’s commitment to Him.

Paul also did not question or doubt Me through all of his trials and that was why he said in 2 Corinthians 1:9 that he was persuaded that the sentence of death was to ensure that his faith to overcome did not rest in himself or another but in Me, who is able to raise the dead.

You also must come to that place where you believe in Me, trust Me, follow Me, and remain faithful to Me irrespective of the storms and trials that you face. Only trust and confidence in Me can bring and keep you in that place’

I say:

‘But Lord, the bible did say that You sometimes do your works and acts so that people might see and believe. What is wrong in wanting to see things go a certain way in my life that I might believe that it is You that is at work in me?’

He says:

‘Yes, but when I do it, it is for the benefit of those who doubt Me, and like you at this moment, need to see to be convinced or persuaded of who I am.

But you, you must come to that place where like Abraham your father and like the great men and women who have gone ahead of you, believe in Me and trust Me irrespective of your experiences.

Whatever issues exist or needs to be resolved, do not question My faithfulness or loyalty to you. Rather, come to the place of fellowship and stay there until I help you to see clearly again’

There it is. My vision of Him is blurred or else why would I question God’s integrity or His faithfulness to me in a way that I have not even questioned my spouse’s.

Every human marriage has its challenges and yet for most of the time we do not question our spouse’s love or faithfulness every time we encounter trials. Rather, we pray together and promise to hold on together knowing that in unity we have a greater chance of overcoming. So, why is it so easy for us to come to that place where we doubt or question God’s love or commitment to our relationship with Him just because things are not seemingly going the way the Bible states they would? With our human spouses we are so willing to believe them and the promises they make, yet we find it so difficult to trust God again after a disappointment just because we are afraid of being disappointed again.

God is not man; His ways are not our ways. Or else how can we begin to understand why He would let a man lose all his children, wealth, position, good health, honour, the respect of his peers all in a day (Job 1:13 – 2:13) just to be able to boast in that man (Job 1:8 – 12). How can a man wait all his life for a child and just when the boy is on the brink of becoming a man, asks that he should be offered as a burning sacrifice? (Genesis 22:2).

There are things that we would never be able to understand about God and His ways. And some of them would, like it did to me in the last 2 days, threaten to tear us apart from so great a love. But, we have to learn to trust Him through it all. We must allow our hearts to accept the truth about Him – He is true, He is pure and holy, He is good and gracious, in Him there is no guile, no wickedness, no shadow of turning. He is perfect in all His ways, He is a friend that is closer than a brother, He never leaves nor forsakes His own. He is the rock that we can stand upon and be sure of never sinking, He is the light that overcomes darkness and darkness never comprehends, He is slow to anger but quick to mercy, He is the only One that will stand by us from the beginning of a trial all the way to the end. Some are with us at the beginning and soon are tired of the burden we sometimes are to others in the storm, some are there along the journey and just half-way through they leave us. But God is the only Alpha and Omega – He is the only One who goes with us all the way, He is there at the beginning, in between and at the end.

There is so much more to Him. Some of these you might have found out for yourselves and a lot more you can still discover.

So, I end this piece by encouraging us both to trust Him, just trust Him, even when the facts and the physical evidence seem to give a verdict that threatens to tear us away from Him. We need to hold on to Him, knowing that the facts can lie but He is the truth. We must hold on to Him not because of persuasive facts but because we know Him. Strength belongs to those who know their God.

And next time the strength of the pain and the shame that we sometimes face threatens to separate us from Him, we must declare boldly and loudly that:

‘Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor hunger, nor rejection, nor sickness nor infirmity, nor delays in getting a job, a life partner or a child, nor death or life, nor angels or principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any created thing shall separate us from Him who is and forever remains the best part of our lives, the best ‘thing’ that has or will ever happen to us’

I pray that we continue to receive by faith that grace that is always sufficient and able to keep us and that our need for Jesus would always be greater than our need for whatever threatens to tear us away from Him.

Shalom

Chi Onwuchekwa

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