
Sometimes we think we are connected because joy smiles at us, and gratitude overwhelms us. We jump, praise, and transmit hope, security, and much faith. But when things don't go well or as we would like them to be, then our connectivity falls apart, and hopeful resignation accompanies us. Sometimes I think we are formed more as believers than as warriors, and that is why we see some unpopular biblical books, such as the Book of Job or the Book of Revelation, books that prepare warriors. It often seems that our faith depends on results, and if they don't happen, our strength diminishes and calms down while we wait.
We are eager to hear about miracles and see results, but not about battles. We love to condition miracles to immediate realities, but not to know about processes. When getting up and breathing is already a wonderful miracle in itself.
I agree that God does not distribute sickness, difficulties, sadness, pain, and death. Still, He is not oblivious to them and has knowledge and permission for them to occur. Job was an example of this; his faith was put to rigorous and extreme testing. But, in reality, it was the enemy who was being tested. On the night of His arrest, Jesus Himself asked His Father to remove that bitter cup from Him because He knew what He was going to experience. But He made it clear that God should do His will because without His crucifixion, we would not have salvation. His suffering, like Job's, had a purpose, and He had to die to show that life is possible again.
Many times we take tests and difficulties as punishments and not as tests of strength and faith in and with God.
For me, what is important is not how visible our spirituality is, how much we speak in tongues, how much we prophesy, how much our bodies shake. If our security is uncertain in storms and there is an abundance of inexplicable or unknown answers, it is like having results without seeing the importance of the operation. It is like being very good at addition and multiplication but terrible at subtraction and division, with which our math will always be convenient and therefore deficient.
If our battles depend on our victories, we are already defeated because it is easy to talk about faith and praise when things are going well. But the real test occurs when things are not going well and are adverse. That is why I sometimes feel that we surf on the sea of faith, but we don't like to dive. We love the cool message and preach it, but we hide the real message that carries the bitter taste. We worry more about seeing miracles than overcoming battles, and we believe that seeing others' victories prepares us for our own. However, each battle is and will be different, and each enemy has different strategies to defeat us. We hurry to enjoy thinking about the sunny day in the rain instead of enjoying the rain itself.
I believe that more important than celebrating victories is knowing how to fight battles because training applause and preparing for the celebration is useless if we don't know how to fight and withstand complex situations. We talk about tangible and evident miracles, but not about miracles that happen without happening, such as the case of the Australian preacher Nicholas James Vujicic, who has not had his four limbs since birth, only his torso and head, without arms or legs. However, without legs, he has gone much further than many of us, and without arms, he has done many more good things for others. He prayed to have limbs, but he did not see it happen. Instead, he learned to fight a very good battle with God's help. He decided to find a purpose in his conditions and reality, not to lament and wait for a miracle that was already in him.
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