Lord, Help My Unbelief
I've been with my husband for 15 years now, and we've been married for 6, almost 7 of those years. Wow saying it out loud is kind of mind blowing because I really can't believe we've been together for that long. We had our rocky patches while we were dating and would break up to make up; but for the most part that is 15 continuous years of growing and evolving with one another. For the years that I’ve been with him and been heavy into Christ, I have been praying many prayers. Praying for changes, praying for maturity, praying for communication, praying prayers that after a while I began praying out of mindless habit.
When I started reading Mark Batterson’s book Draw the Circle, God began making me revisit some of those old prayers. As I reflected on them, I realized God answered quite a few of them, but there were still many left unanswered. I asked God why he was making me revisit those same prayers since he hadn’t answered them before. All I heard was "I'm waiting for you". Waiting for me?!!?! I thought. Not possible! How could God be waiting on me when I prayed those prayer in the first place?!!? I chalked it up and got ready for work. On my drive in, an oldie but goodie came on the radio. Y’all know that James Fortune song, "Let Your Power Fall"? I used to really love that song and listen to it every day. For the rest of the day, I kept singing "Fight this battle for me, help my unbelief". Somewhere after my 234th time singing it, it dawned on me, Help my unbelief. At first, I couldn’t really grasp that I had any unbelief. "Like unbelief like I’m faithless God? I don't think I’m faithless? God, you think I’m faithless?". I was truly confused, so I looked up the word unbelief. I found that Unbelief is the absence of faith. Some of y’all may be thinking "WELL DUHH" it means faithless. But that definition made me see it differently. It wasn’t that I was completely faithless, it was that I had less faith. In other words, it wasn’t the quantity of my faith, it was the quality of my faith. We know the Bible tells us that God gives everyone a portion of faith, which means we all possess faith. The bible also tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, so that means it doesn’t matter the size of the portion. But it also tells us in Romans 4:19, that Abraham’s faith did not weaken through any of the circumstances that were thrown at him. Because his faith didn’t waver it brought Glory to God and God counted him as righteous, not just for his benefit but for the benefit of the nations that he birthed as well. Which means that it’s the strength of our faith and how much we believe through the trials and tribulations of life.
Over the years of prayers going unanswered, my faith wavered. Through trials and tribulations, shame, anger and guilt, I began to doubt what God told me. That’s why my holy spirit said he was waiting for me. Waiting for me to strengthen my faith in the matters regarding my marriage. So how could I strengthen my faith? I had to start with understanding. Not all things are for us to understand HOWEVER, we do need to understand that God can answer our prayers whenever, wherever and however he wants. This may be the season that both of us are able to receive. This could be the season where we are both willing to work and compromise to make necessary changes. Maybe this is the appointed time that God has for us because it aligns with the breakthrough of other people. Whatever His reasoning, I had to understand that Gods timing is perfect. Just because he doesn’t answer in the timing that I wanted doesn’t mean he’s not going to answer me.
I then followed up with these 3 things to help my unbelief:
1. Make it up in your mind that change IS coming. The bible says, as a man thinketh so is he. So you have to start with your thoughts. Start letting go of doubt, fear, and negativity that are limiting your mindset and put your thoughts on all things good, positive, hopeful and promised by God.
2. Then find you some scriptures to put some faith on it. Scriptures aren’t just in the bible to be read. They are to live in our hearts and minds and lived by. Incorporate specific scriptures into your prayers. God is not a man that he shall lie so if he wrote it, he will honor it.
3. Finally, SPEAK those things as though they are. Now that you have uprooted all your doubt and found scriptures to stand by, it’s time to speak those things into existence. Life and death is in the power of the tongue so SPEAK UP because your life depends on it. Someone once told me, that we plant seeds every time we speak. Seeds of good and seeds of evil. If we are planting seeds of evil, it is important to uproot those seeds and sow plants that will grow our harvest. This means we can’t even make silly jokes or say things out of anger, instead we have to choose our words and speak them intentionally.
I am currently in the midst of this process, and I am already beginning to see important shifts in my marriage. I am already feeling more confident in my marriage. I don’t know what God has in store, but I do know that my prayers, my desires, and my intentionality behind my prayers are different this time. All that makes me confident that God hears me and is ready to move on my behalf. So, if you have some things, you are still waiting on God about check your unbelief. Check the quality of your faith. Do what you need to do to retrain your faith and strengthen it.
Until Next Time My Faithphilled Friends,
XOXO
Amanda Christine
