Note from us: This is the second week for our guest blogger. As we stated last week, B. Alison Buckner is our sister/friend. She has graciously agreed to add her voice to our conversations about faith. Let's hear from her as she explores the ideas of becoming and overcoming.
Reflections on Overcoming
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like (Gen 1:26), he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
I know that a difficult life with many disappointments, betrayals, failures and shortcomings can make a person feel unworthy and worthless. In the middle of such pain and suffering, it is hard to believe that a man reported to be God came to earth to die for our sins and to set us free to live abundantly on earth and eternally with Him. It seems far-fetched and completely fairy-tale- like. But this is where faith, trust and prayer are useful - I would even say it is needful. Having these three (faith, trust and prayer) are essential to believing God and knowing Him.
Believing God (faith) + Knowing Him (trust in His word & prayer) = Your Life Made New (physically & spiritually)
By faith we come to understand His plan and we come to know more intimately our Father God. Knowing God cultivates our trust in Him, so that we can fully rely on Him.To know our stories were written by Almighty Creator before we even drew our first breath is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend. Because of His unending, unyielding love for us, we can give up trying so hard to be what we imagine ourselves to be, what we have become or what others desire us to be.
Imagine, from conception to the throne, our lives are known. Our lives are carefully planned from conception, to birth, infancy, and through the full revolutions of our developmental stages, until we see Him face-to-face. This includes everything about us, the good and the bad.This may be hard to take in but the marvelous thing about sin, guilt & death is that God handled this for us in the beginning, so that as we are becoming who He called us to be, we find that we are already what He planned. No stage of our lives is beyond His awareness and understanding. He has provided grace along the journey.
Can you see God's intention and purpose in Daniel's life? Although Daniel lived before the physical Christ walked the earth, God gave Daniel a name (God is my Judge), and though Babylonian captivity produced another name, Belteshazzar (Lord of the straitened's treasure), Daniel remained true to his God-given name and followed this identity because he knew God. And God unfolded his miserable captivity into ruler-ship, favor and renowned fame. Daniel's name & reputation are known even until this day. This is grace in action!
So Daniel becomes a prototype for our lives today. Pressures, problems & probabilities can became surety and certainties of God's plan for Daniel's life. Likewise pressures, problems and probabilities can be a surety for us, knowing God had these specific things in mind for our lives, knowing who we are and who we know. Daniel knew that God was real and that God would be his help and his judge. Likewise, we are God's elect and He fights for us - Do you know it? God will be our help and our judge! Using the same tools and resources Daniel used: faith, trust and prayer, we are able to see ourselves becoming to overcoming, all because of God's Love.
Isn't that heart-warming news? Our today, tomorrow, ups, downs, good, evil, imagined or real situations cannot remove us from Father God because He loves us. We are in Him!
Reflection Questions
1. How do you view your pressures, problems, and probabilities?
2. Do you see God working in your life? How?
3. It is not easy living, what can you do to strengthen your faith towards God, trust in God and prayer to God?
4. Just like Daniel had fellow believers in his journey, identify 1-3 individuals that you can connect with to join in each other's journey of faith.
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