Sometimes when we beg the Lord for confirmation or a sign, what we’re really saying is that:

• We don’t want to walk by faith- we want to walk by sight.
• We don’t find His direction in Scripture enough.
• We don’t take Him at His Word that He’ll always be with us.

God’s leading often asks us to ‘go’ without us knowing the where. Or to follow with hope instead of with certainty.

God’s leading often asks us to 'go' without us knowing the where. Or to follow with hope instead of with certainty. @BethanyMcIlrath
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His confirmation often comes after our faith has grown.

“God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.’” –Exodus 3:12 

Just think…

Moses was standing in front of a burning bush, hearing the voice of God. He wasn’t entirely sure this was God. He had good reason to think that the people he was being sent to wouldn’t believe him. God was sending him back to a land he fled from because he was going to be killed there.

Moses would be returning to slavery to speak to oppressed, worn people who his relationship with was complicated at best. He was to tell all these people that God Himself had sent him, that generations of oppression were about to end with no warning, and that they were going to leave the mud pits triumphant and enter a glorious promised land they would call their own.

God was asking him to follow by faith, not by sight.

The sign? The confirmation?

It was going to come after all the crazy stuff. “When” Moses had obeyed, “when” the people were already freed, and “when” what seemed impossible was accomplished…that was “when” Moses would have it confirmed that it was indeed God who sent him in the first place!

Would Moses have even doubted by then?

God would be with Him. There would come a day after walking through very treacherous times by faith that Moses would return to the mountain where God first spoke to Him.

And THEN Moses would know what He needed to know most…

God was the One who sent Him. God, who said He would be with him, would have been beside Him all that time.

So it goes for us.

We walk by faith. We obey what His Word already says, even when we want more explanations and directions. We believe God that He is with us.

We trust that someday, we’ll turn around and recognize what is then behind us is one big, brilliant sign: God sent us, and He has been with us all the time.

Let’s walk by faith as Moses did, for:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” –Hebrews 11:1

{A version of this post was previously published here}

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My competitive side was getting the better of me. As far as we were into the game, it was clear I wasn’t going to win. I’d tried, strategizing my way through, but there was no doubt who would have the victory (not me.)

The temptation? To pick up the whole stinking board game and shake it. Maybe toss it. Maybe stomp on it, as I’d seen little kids I babysat do.

On that day, I was feeling like a sore loser.

That’s what Satan probably feels like every day.

Sometimes I need reminding of this, and maybe you do too.

Satan knows he is going to lose.

Victory, for all eternity, belongs to Jesus. He’s already won it. Fate is secure. Back in the garden when God pronounced His curses, Satan knew he would be the loser.

Still, he wages war. Sore loser that he is, Satan does what he can to stack the playing field so we doubt the outcome. He shakes up the board, so all the pieces look like they’re out of place and we can’t make sense of anything.

Like a bitter child about to be punished, he gets in whatever jabs he can anyway.

Satan likes to go down swinging.

That’s why faith is still a fight, even though we know who is going to win in the end.

Satan likes to go down swinging. That’s why faith is still a fight, even though we know who is going to win in the end.
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When suffering and sorrow make fear and desperation seem credible,

Remember:

• The end is near
• Death will die
• Satan will be bound
• Christ has overcome the world
• There is no condemnation for those who are Christ’s
• God gives us the victory through Jesus

This battle of faith isn’t about winning because it’s already been won. Instead, it’s about persisting.

The believer’s rallying cry is simply keep on.

Though that sore loser thrashes and trash talks and threatens that he isn’t playing, we know he’s missed the whole point of the game anyway. We’re not to miss it, too.

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” –1 Corinthians 15:58

Continuing to do the next thing, to play by God’s rules, to live faithfully to the finish line with our eyes on the prize- is not in vain.

Satan’s a sore loser, but He will lose!

“Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” -1 John 5:5

Keep fighting the good fight of faith!

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When you get sick, one of the first questions you ask the doctor is “when will I will be better?”

After a tragedy occurs, there is a point in which restitution is expected, a point at which an “end” is reached: the check arrives, the new house is moved into, the perpetrator goes to jail.

This looking to an end shows it’s in our nature to desire closure.

We all want a happy ending. But this broken world has proven time after time that we might not get a happy ending- and we don’t like that!

Even as Christians, we tend to dismiss the idea of leaving loose ends, never receiving that apology or forgiveness, or accepting that some actions will never be made right.

In a way, that’s wrong. In another way, it’s very right.

God doesn't promise happy endings in (this) lifetime.
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God never says we’ll get our desired explanations for why an illness is both chronic and untreatable, or why a crime goes unsolved. Or why the wicked prosper. Or why the steadfast suffer needlessly. Or why hurricanes wipe out whole countries.

But we’re still to have faith.

“These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised” Hebrews 11:39

Moses died without entering the promised land. Isaiah died without watching the Savior who he so often spoke of. There were many others who didn’t meet happy endings – like the disciples, who were martyred!

Yet like these heroes of the faith, you and I can face the many unclosed doors, loose threads, and “never-seem-to-ends” of life by faith.

We can place our hope in the one “happily ever after” that we can count on: Christ’s.

We can place our hope in the one “happily ever after” that we can count on: Christ’s.
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That’s where we get it right when we remind those hurting, suffering, and struggling with closure that it will come and it will be okay. Maybe not now. Possibly (in some cases probably) not even on this earth. But looking toward the “the end” of eternity, we can humbly live out Psalm 131:

“My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.”

Humbly, without closure, we can accept that we don’t need a resolution to live by faith. We can recognize that some things are bigger than we can understand –and that includes the “how” and “when” of God working all things wonderfully for good.

Our hope isn’t in a chance of circumstance, an answer, or any other “ending.”

“Have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf” Hebrews 6:19-20

Our hope can be in the Lord now –even without closure- and in the forevermore –in which all is made right.

{A version of this post was previously published here}

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