We don’t like to admit it, but sometimes God doesn’t come through the way we hoped He would. You prayed. You believed. You fasted, you hoped, you did everything you knew to do—and still nothing changed. The promotion fell through. The illness lingered. The marriage didn’t heal. The relationship wasn’t restored. In those moments, you start to believe God let you down. He is omnipotent. He could...
When we urgently need an answer, silence is the last thing we want to hear. Silence can be unsettling, even painful. We see the answer as so obvious; God just has to make the move. It’s the end of the month, and the mortgage is due. Or a family member or friend is very ill, and God needs to give the doctors the wisdom and ability to intercede. Maybe you’ve been there—praying late at night...
Does your faith only grow when God says “yes?” When the promotion comes through, when the family member or friend recovers from their illness, even when we avoid the consequences of a bad decision, we celebrate and proclaim His goodness. But what happens when our prayers seem to go unanswered, when God’s timeline isn’t ours, or His response is “no”? That’s when our faith gets tested. Many...
Today’s world is addicting us to speed—overnight deliveries, instant streaming, instant answers. Anything that makes us wait is totally unacceptable. In Real Faith Isn’t Based on Results, we touched on how impatient we’ve become, but let’s lean in a little closer. If a package doesn’t show up the next day, or if the Wi-Fi lags for thirty seconds, it feels like the end of the world...
There are times in life when it feels like you’ve been thrown into the fire and left there. God’s voice seems silent. His presence feels distant. The solutions appear to be few. The days blur together, the nights feel longer, and prayer feels like shouting into an empty sky. Let the pity party begin. Maybe you’ve been there—watching dreams fall apart, relationships disintegrate, health...