2 Corinthians 5:7
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

By Marni Montanez

2 Corinthians 5:7

New King James Version (NKJV)     

7 For we walk by faith, not by sight

If nature represented your walk of faith, what would it look like?

Would you see a turbulent wind causing ocean waves to rise up quickly and then come crashing down with thundering force?  Or would you see a meadow where all is serene and quiet and flowers open up graciously to the sun's inviting rays.

Do concerns and pressures take you down a path of fear and anxiety or do they take you into new places where your faith is built up and becomes stronger?  Faith looks like the serene meadow. It is a way of living; it is a knowing that all is well because God is still ruling our hearts and He is still in control.

We are not free within ourselves when daily expectations govern our every step.  We can be molded by the negative situations that arise and react accordingly. Though they are momentary they have lasting effects.

In contrast, Imagine walking along life's path with no agendas, no expectations.  Just living in the moment where all that is present for us to take in is within possibility.  I am not talking about abandoning all responsibilities and allowing the day to unfold by chance, I am talking about expecting nothing from the world and from others and walking with expectation that God is good and He has a plan.  

By practicing our walk of faith we will find ourselves responding to difficult situations from a place of trusting in God. Most of us tend to cram ourselves in a tightly fitted cage of expectations and although there is no lock to keep us in this darkness, we keep ourselves in these confines with our self-made lock of expectations.   Faith is expecting and trusting God for any and all answers.

When I was a transporter for the Texas dept. of family protective services, I would wrap my day around anxiety as I tried to stay within the scheduled times of pickups and drop offs. The traffic, the weather and distance sometimes made this impossible.  One day as I was speeding through traffic to make it on time I realized there was just no way I was going to do it. So I purposely slowed  my car down and told myself that I was doing my best and if I don’t make it, I don’t make it.  From then on it became a challenge of mine to keep my peace as I did my best and had faith God would make a way.   It wasn’t so much for me to be on time that God was working on; it was the frustration and anxiety inside of me He wanted to calm.  He wanted me to have faith in His ability and not mine. 

There have been many times of learning to trust God and agree with Him and His way of working things out.  Faith is a long journey and it must be met with the willingness to venture forward at all cost.

My challenge for you is to practice walking in faith by setting your expectations on God’s goodness.  

God bless you,

Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.