Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.
Elisabeth Elliot
In my last blog entry, The Journey to Less Stuff, I shared about working to live with less. I have been reading a lot of blog posts and articles about simple living and about living satisfied with simple pleasures. Sometimes a lack of contentment in God’s provisions stems from a lack of confidence. I tend to compare my ‘stuff’, status in life, and self to others. What holds me back from fully trusting is not what I have, but what I think I don’t have. I believe, though, that when I am a good steward with what I am graced with and I live well with His graces, contentment follows. And when “Thy will be done” becomes the heart’s desire, it is then that my mind is stable and satisfied with God in the lead.
I may not understand where God has me right now. I may not know why God created me a certain way. But when I take my eyes off Him and look on the lives of others or to self for answers, I lack wisdom.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”
James 1:5-7
God gives wisdom generously and without scolding when I ask for it in full faith. But when I go back and forth between trusting and uncertainty, He knows that I am like a sea’s wave moved by winds of doubt. And God does not reward a double minded mindset.
Faith in God still has questions. Lots of them. But stability and satisfaction comes from looking to the right Source for the answers and being wise enough to know that God has His own timing in everything to reveal a matter- even if it means something to know only when I get to Heaven. True faith is confident to take those questions to the throne of Grace and leave them there.