The Faithfulness Of God

There are times in our lives that the circumstances we find ourselves in are far and above anything we can control ourselves. This is where we must learn to take our eyes off the circumstances that we find ourselves in and place our faith in the God who is in control of it all.

A time of testing

About three years after my husband and I were married, I was finishing up my second year of teaching and my husband was finishing up his first year of teaching. We were so excited about the things God had in store for us because we had just found out that we were expecting our first child. Little did we know that what lay ahead of us was going to cause our faith to do some stretching. Within the next couple of days I had gotten news that I was not guaranteed a teaching position the following year because of some cutbacks in the school district. Okay, no big deal right, at least we had my husband’s job. In the amount of time it took me to have that very thought, my husband came home to tell me that his job had been completely eliminated. His district was trying to consolidate jobs in order to find ways to save money, which meant no more job for him. As if this were not enough to make an expecting mother stay up all hours of the night worrying, my car broke down. This was not an ordinary break down either. I’m talking towing it to the garage break down. I’m talking the type of break down that you begin to contemplate if you are going to send the car to the junkyard type of break down. So let’s just do a quick little overview of what we were looking at, shall we. Here we are, a baby on the way, neither one of us have a job, no health insurance, and we are down to one car. Talk about putting my heart in the hands of God here! Somehow, despite the chaos of all of these things swirling around there was the strangest peace through it all. I can remember sharing my story with another teacher of the challenges that our family was facing. I ending the conversation with “I don’t know how, but it’s all going to work out.” The look I got from this other teacher was one of “Oh, I hope you're right, you poor thing.”

The God of the impossible

We serve a God who does not look at the circumstances we are in and stamp them as “possible” or “impossible.” We serve the God of the impossible. So in those moments that “impossible” comes up in our lives all we have to do is look at the Lord and not at the impossibilities staring us in the face. Our God is so much bigger than what is in front of us. He can handle it! We need to have faith that He can handle it. Faith by definition is believing that God is going to stay true to his character despite the circumstances we find ourselves in.

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

Not only is the Lord able to begin a good work, but He is able and faithful to complete it! I think this is probably one of the reasons why I had such peace about everything in this season. I knew the Lord was going to do a good work in our lives. He was going to be faithful to carry out this good work to completion. He was not going to leave us hanging on for dear life. He was not going to leave His children begging for bread (Psalms 73:25). I had no need to worry, no need to fret. It was my responsibility to cast my cares and my worries upon Him (1 Peter 5:7).

God’s Faithfulness

In this time of uncertainty in our life, the Lord opened up some doors that we were not looking for, and showed us favor in ways we did not expect. At the conclusion of my school year I was told of some job opportunities for the following year. After some discussion with my husband we had both decided that once our little one was born it would be best if I stayed home. This was a desire of my heart and God in His faithfulness has a way of giving us the desires of our hearts. Since I was due in January I applied for a half year position and ended up getting a half year reading position. Ironically enough, I was filling in for another teacher who just a baby. The position’s ending date lined up perfectly with my due date. I could not have planned things any better if I tried (thank goodness I didn’t try). This is why it is so important to trust the Lord that He knows what He is doing.

As far as my car, thankfully with some help from family, we were able to get it fixed without breaking the bank too badly. I want you to know something very important about the significance of having two vehicles. God knew that we would need two vehicles because God was about to open yet another door for our family.

My husband’s school district had called him up and asked him to come in to interview for a middle school math position. Here is where the doors are not only blown wide open, but they are blown entirely off their hinges! My husband was a certified health and physical education teacher. Upon graduation, he decided that it might be a good idea to take some of the other teacher’s certification tests to see if he could get certified in other areas. He chose to take his middle school math test and passed. Now, you need to understand that he holds a middle school math teaching certificate, but never went through any formal math training in terms of teaching it. This is significant because for a school district to consider an applicant for a position they have to be deemed “qualified.” By this point you all are probably wondering the very same thing my husband and I were both wondering at the time he got the phone call from his district for this interview. “Why in the world would they hire a certified teacher who did not go to school for that certification?”  This is why we must take our eyes off our circumstances and put our eyes on the one in control. 

The Lord gave my husband such favor with his district. He walked out of his interview feeling as if the Lord had just taken over his tongue. He felt as if the Lord had given him the right words to say and the right way to say them. He later found out that they hired him for this middle school math position for several reasons. Not only did his interview go well, but they had sent his entire first year of teaching getting reports from others in the district of his good rapport with students and great relationships with the faculty and staff he worked with. In other words, they saw the potential of greatness in him. They looked past what was recorded on paper and looked at his character. How many job opportunities do you know of that are filled based on a person’s character? God in his faithfulness gave my husband great favor with his district. The doors that had been closed were blown off their hinges so that we would be provided for. I am so thankful that the Lord takes care of us, especially in ways we least expect them.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1  (KJV)

If you have been following my blog, or you know me personally then you already know that this life example was such a small thing in the area of testing my faith. The testings have since increased in scale, but I will have you know that God has held up His end and stayed true to His character with each and every testing! He has never let me down! NEVER! And guess what? He NEVER will. The beauty of it all is that He is NEVER going to let you down either! He is a faithful to all of His children, even when we are not faithful to Him. God’s character of faithfulness does not change just because we miss it. He remains faithful even in those moments that we are not faithful to Him. That is such a humbling thought to me, to know that God does not change, His faithfulness remains steadfast!

Thank you Lord for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for showing us time and time again through our testings and the trials that you are faithful through it all. Give us eyes to see your faithfulness in the midst of the trial and not to lose heart in those moments.

To read more on the faithfulness of God visit: Facing Our Giants, Blind Faith, My By Faith Shoes, The Example Of Esther, Joseph’s Journey, and My Testimony