Take Courage! I AM Here!

Hey Lovelies!

It's been a while! I feel like I always start my posts with an apology for how inconsistent I have been and a promise of how I am going to do better and I end up not following through *sigh*. So, today I am not even going to make any promises lol. I am just going to say Happy New Year!! and dive into the topic for today :).

The past few months have been very trying for me as I have been waiting on God for breakthrough over a certain situation. And mehn... it's really been a journey. There are days where I am all fired up and my faith is all out regarding the situation, and there are days where I just want to stay in bed all day and sleep, sort of as a coping mechanism, and honestly, there are days where I've really done that. However, I thank God for His word and my wonderful support system, which have kept me going. My siblings, my parents, and my church family have really been amazing. It is such a great thing to be surrounded by people of faith when you're in a tough situation. I am so much better than I was during the early stages of my waiting period when I would get easily discouraged. So, today I will be doing what 2 Corinthians 1:4 says, encouraging anyone who is also going through a stormy situation with the same encouragement I have received from God. Because it is very easy to wait until we get our miracle to now encourage others but I believe we can find strength by encouraging others during our waiting/stormy periods.

The title of my post is from Matthew 14:27 (NLT). However, the full context is found in Matthew 14: 23-32. Here goes the story. After the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus sends his disciples home while he heads into the hills to pray. Of course the disciples are on a boat heading home when a strong wind and heavy waves come against them (vs 24). So, they are very afraid because they are far away from land (vs 24). However, Jesus sees them and so, he starts walking towards them on water to help them. The disciples see someone walking towards them on water and become even more terrified because they think it is a ghost (vs 25 & 26). However, Jesus says this to help them calm down "Don't be afraid. Take courage I am here" (vs 27). So, first learning point, isn't it funny how quickly we forget that God is with us through our storms? I mean the disciples had hung around with Jesus for a while yet they could not even recognize Him just because He was walking on the very thing that made them afraid. And many times, we behave just like the disciples. We feel like we are alone and helpless when all the while, the one who walks on water and calms the storms is right there with us. He is not just with us but He is also in us because His spirit lives in us, and He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Now, going further to verse 28. Peter is not sure whether it is really Jesus walking on water so he asks Jesus to beckon him to come just to confirm. And of course, Jesus does and Peter is in fact walking on water toward Jesus until He loses his focus. Verse 30 reads "But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. "Save me, Lord!" he shouted". This leads to my next point, whenever we take our eyes/mind/focus off Jesus during the storms, it is very easy to sink into sadness, depression, self-pity, you name it. Let's look at a cross reference scripture, Isaiah 26:3. I love how the amplified version puts it: “You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast [that is, committed and focused on You—in both inclination and character],
Because he trusts and takes refuge in You [with hope and confident expectation]". Lovelies, we can find peace in our storms when we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. His love is the only thing that remains constant throughout life's ups and downs really. I always like to say "circumstances change but God doesn't". Many times, we fall into the trap of thinking that if we get that job or promotion or house or relationship or that sum of money, etc that we will be happy. But the happiness that comes from those things are short-lived because things don't satisfy. This is not to say that there's anything wrong in desiring things, no! God is a good father and desires to give good gifts to His children. He even knows what we need before we say a word. However, our primary focus must be him. It is when we delight in Him, that is put Him first, that He will grant us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4).

So, how can we stay focused on Jesus? By living in close fellowship with Him. I mentioned earlier how I am so thankful for God's word because it is one thing that has kept me going through these stormy period. The word of God is like medicine to the soul. It eliminates symptoms of doubt and fear because faith and fear can't coexist. So if you find symptoms of fear and doubt persisting, you're probably not taking in enough of His word and need to increase your dosage. Seriously! Something my brother encouraged me to do that has helped build my faith through this period is finding scriptures that relate to my situation, writing them down, and meditating on them everyday. Initially, I just had a couple of scriptures in my head that I will confess from time to time but honestly, writing them down in the memo pad on my phone and actually looking at them everyday has really helped me. There are days where my faith is not so fired up for whatever reason, maybe something in the mail or a phone call came that tried to discourage me, and I will have to meditate on those scriptures multiple times that day to be encouraged. Or sometimes, I will go on YouTube to listen to one or two sermons. Literally overdosing on the word of God lol! But all in all, these things have really helped. It is not just enough to go to church on Sunday and hear the word, we must do it everyday. The same way we feed our physical bodies everyday, we must also feed our spirits everyday.

Lastly, prayer is key! It is our way of communicating with God. We speak to Him and He speaks back to us. James 5:16  NLT says "the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results". Wow! Lovelies, our prayers produce wonderful results! So, don't give up. There are days where you literally need to stir up yourself to pray because you just don't feel like. There are days where I pray for myself the prayer Jesus prayed for Peter that my faith and confidence in God will not fail but that instead His name will be magnified in my life and that when I look back at this period in my life, I will see how much my faith grew (Luke 22:32). 

I hope you've been encouraged, my lovelies. Because even I myself have been encouraged writing this post :). As I reflect on life, I realize that at any point in life, the Devil will always give us something to worry about. But we must not allow the cares of life to weigh us down, rather we must constantly look up to Jesus, the I AM, meaning that He is and can be anything we need Him to be. He is my helper, my glory, the lifter of my head. What is He to you/What do you need Him to be? Just call Him that.