“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be

Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

Great is Thy Faithfulness is a beloved old hymn because it reminds us of God’s unchanging faithfulness to us. He is a reliable, unchanging, steadfast God who always keeps His promises. If we have any trauma in our lives or if we’ve experienced the always-changing nature of the people around us we might find the concept of a faithful loving God hard to believe. Take it from me who’s been let down and rejected time and time again, it’s really true. God is as good as His Word Promises. He is the best friend, Father, and Savior you’ll ever know and the only one you’ll ever need. If you don’t believe me that’s ok, just ask Him for yourself and He’ll show you.

Once we believe in His faithfulness how do we actually have faith in Him? How do we trust He’ll give us what we need and be there for us? How do we believe Him for something we’ve asked, something really important to us even though we haven’t seen it yet? Those are the questions I’ve been wrestling with lately and that’s also why I’ve been looking forward to this post for weeks.

I found the first part of my answer in James, one of my favorite books of the Bible. James 1:5-7 says,

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.”

The first step of faith is to ask for wisdom and believe that God will give it to you. Why? Because God says right there in His Word through James that if you ask for wisdom with no doubting, He will give it to you.

Anytime I’ve been trying to make a big decision… to date or to break up, to stay or to go, to say yes or no, and so on; I’ve needed wisdom from God. It would be crazy to think I could make those decisions on my own so my first step is always asking for wisdom, or at least that should be my first step.

Maybe I’m not even trying to make a big decision. Maybe I just want to be in God’s presence and feel Him close to me while I read His word or go about my day. I can ask him for that too with the trust and belief that He will hear me and do what’s best for me. In the Old Testament, Moses asked to see God’s face and God honored his request by putting his hand over Moses so that Moses could feel God’s presence without being killed by looking directly into God’s face. What a compassionate God to have the patience to reveal himself to Moses even though Moses had already made so many mistakes. God cares for us the same way. I know that when I’ve asked God to bring me into His presence or to come into the room, I can literally see his shadow in a way that’s special to me even though my eyes have literally never seen anything but light and dark in my whole life. To me, that’s God giving me the space to encounter Him in a way that He knows will be meaningful to me. Those experiences of asking for God’s wisdom or presence help me increase my faith for the big questions that don’t always get answered on my timeline.

I’ve asked so many questions recently. Will I ever get to be a wife and a mom? Will I ever have a fulfilling job? Will I ever walk into church and be accepted and wanted by people my own age? Will anyone ever see me as more than the girl with a cane? Will I ever move to a place where I can be independent and not feel so trapped and useless? There are more but you probably get the point. If I spent every day asking those questions and crying (which believe me, I’ve done before) I’d always be miserable and I’d never really get anywhere. I spent so much of my life being miserable and then one day God took me on the journey of learning how to have faith instead of doubt and anger.

As a result, one of my favorite verses is Hebrews 11:1 which says,

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

What does that mean? It means that we are assured that whatever we hope for will happen if it’s in God’s will, or even more that we are assured God has heard what we’ve asked, and He is working the situation out for our good. We have the conviction of things we can’t see, meaning the things we can’t see are already a reality. We are convicted in our Spirit that God is real even though we can’t see him. We are confident that God’s promises are true even though we haven’t seen them with our eyes yet. In other words, we trust that what God says he will also do. We trust that what we’re waiting for will happen exactly as God has planned in His perfect timing.

That’s a lot to take in and even more to put into practice. But the good thing is that God helps us with our faith when we ask. So, we’re back to where we started. Step 1: ask for wisdom and help and God who holds the whole world in His hands will give it to you. There’s one more line from the hymn that I love, “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” That’s what God gives us when we have faith in Him and that’s what I pray over each and every one of you reading this now.

Katelyn