Devotion on Faith: Do Not Strive Because God Is Alive!

"My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Hebrews 13:5

When we work we work faithfully, but when God works He shows up & shows off!

Think about that. We work, we plan, we demonstrate good faith in the fruit of our hard work. Sometimes we even strive. We may even sit back and think, "Wow, not bad." But then God clearly and definably shows up on the scene and He absolutely and ridiculously amazes us with His utter Perfection. His simplest task will blow our best effort out of the water every time! So, it seems to me we have a very valid and secure reason to believe we can trust Him with pretty much everything. Take a moment right now to recap when God has done this for you. You might be thinking, "God hasn't done anything like that for me." Oh, but He has! Be still for a moment, in the moment, pay attention to details of your day. God can do very grand and over the top provision, but he is present in the day to day as well. Have you ever had to be in what felt like a million different places at once with many different people wanting or needing your assistance? You felt anxious about how you would get it all done, but when all was said and done it all worked out? I've had days where I wasn't sure how I was going to manage my calendar. On those days, and I have them a lot, I stop and say a simple prayer asking God to make me efficient and my time as well. Then, I will have someone cancel their appointment or a client who can't make their training they scheduled with me and suddenly, my day all fits! I didn't have to cancel on anyone, God took care of it! Ask God to help you see the tiny ways He benefits you every day. He deserves our FULL confidence. There is none other like Him!

Now, let me take it up a notch and tell you a story about how God took care of a problem I tried to fix on my own and He really showed off! It was when we lived in the house just before we live now. We lived in that house for 13 years with relatively little trouble, until maybe two years before we sold it. We began to have issues with cats. We would get a ridiculous number of cats in our yard from around the neighborhood and they treated our yard as their territory. It wasn't just one or two cats, it was a lot of cats. They would just lay about our yard all day long. My husband hates cats, I kind of like them, but not this many and especially when they aren't my own. They would loiter in our backyard at night as well and have a cat fight almost every night that would wake us. We tried everything we could think of to get them out of our yard. Our dog wasn't even an effective detour for as soon as the dog went in the house they'd return. I was praying about this annoyance when the Lord gave me a clear and definable solution that I had great difficulty having the faith to digest. The Lord clearly told me to write scriptures on small pieces of paper and plant them all around the yard in the flowerbeds that touched the house. This was so far outside my comfort zone I struggled to believe what I was receiving, but I was willing to try anything. So, I did it. I was so self conscious as I planted them in the yard, but I prayed in faith as I dug in the soil.  I was positive every neighbor in the neighborhood was watching me (they weren't). That evening as we slept, we were once again awoken by the sound of a cat yelping. It didn't seem to be a cat fight this night, but a cat seemed distressed. It stopped so I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. Do you know something, after that night, we never had a cat problem in the yard again as long as we lived there which was another 2 or 3 years. I could hardly believe the answer was so simple. Shortly after this experience a friend was sharing she had some mice issues and had tried everything, the exterminator didn't even get it done. I shared my story (hoping she didn't think I was nuts). She agreed to try it and guess what...it worked! No task is too great or too small for the Lord. Whatever we can do, or can't, He will do better if we only just Believe, have Faith and step out each day. There is never any need to strive, because our God is Alive!

~Nicole