Overcoming Your Circumstances Through Faith

What happens when your plans fall apart and everything that you once hoped for now seems lost? What happens when the dreams that drove you and filled your heart with passion begins to seem as if they are perpetually delayed? What happens when everything around you begins to crumble and your footing seems unstable? What will you do?

There are those times when nothing seems to be going your way. You pray, but God seems to be in the distance, totally indifferent to the agony and pain that you are experiencing. You call on friends, but they are aloof and unconcerned. You get the occasional “I will pray for you”, but no one is willing to stand and walk with you. What will you do?

There will come a point in your life when nothing makes sense. You are doing everything within your power to walk out your God ordained destiny. You are pressing on within the will of God, but it seems that the weight of the world is on your shoulders. I have learned that it is not the circumvention of life’s struggles and difficulties that insures victory in the life of the believer, but their response to those difficulties. Besides there can never be a victory without there being a battle.
When the vicissitudes of life roll into your paradise and all that seemed so certain has now become nebulous, this is when you trust God. David said that God is a refuge and strength, a very present help in the time of trouble (Ps. 46:1). This means that God is there for you as a covering, but also to provide the strength necessary to pick yourself up and press forward.

The enemy wants you to consider your circumstances, but God is calling you to consider his power and love. He wants you to see Him, even in the midst of the darkness that is encapsulating you. God wants you to understand who He is and what He is willing to do on your behalf.

Maybe you are like me and you have experienced moments in which the pain was so intense that it paralyzed you. Maybe you too have experienced the force of darkness as it attempts to drain you of every ounce of strength and hope you have left within you. Maybe you have reached a place of despair in your life where you are simply trying to survive. It’s okay, every believer has been there. If you would speak with Job he would be able to tell you about a place of darkness that he thought would destroy him. If you were to sit down with Moses, he would tell you about the many nights of doubt he struggled with before his mountain top experience. If you would speak with Peter, he would tell you about his struggles with failure and inadequacy. If you spoke to Jeremiah, he would testify about the time he almost gave up. Yes, each of these men found themselves in a place of darkness, but it was in this place of darkness that they become most acquainted with God.

Dr. Rick Wallace

In verse 10 of Psalms 46, God speaks through David with a simple but powerful command; “Be still and know that I am God. In the Greek “be still” is translated “cease striving”. Be still, stop striving, stop attempting to push through on your own, and let me move on your behalf. God is saying unequivocally, “Stop striving to no avail and simply recognize who I am in your life. I am bigger than your circumstances. I am bigger than your pain. I am bigger than your failures. I am bigger than your loneliness. I am bigger than your financial difficulties. I a bigger than those obstacles that are stifling your business. Know that I am God and rest in the assurance that I reign supreme and that I am in total control.

When it seems hopeless is the time that you allow your faith in God to be your stabilizer. You may not be able to see it now, but your struggles, your dark moments, your loneliness, and even your failures place you right in the middle of a move of God. God is working in the undercurrents of your struggles. God is about to execute the impossible in the midst of your situation. Don’t listen to the sweet nothings of negativity that the enemy is attempting to whisper into your ear. God has made a promise to never leave nor forsake you. He has made a promise to protect you. He has revealed that you are more than a conqueror through Christ.

Your circumstances are simply an opportunity to trust God, and God never fails. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace

Surviving the Storm

...because everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world. This is the conquering power that has conquered the world: our faith. (1 John 5:4)

At every turn in the road one can find something that will rob him of his victory and peace of mind, if he permits it. Satan is a long way from having retired from the business of deluding and ruining God’s children if he can. At every milestone it is well to look carefully to the thermometer of one’s experience, to see whether the temperature is well up.

Sometimes a person can, if he will, actually snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat, if he will resolutely put his faith up at just the right moment.

Faith can change any situation. No matter how dark it is, no matter what the trouble may be, a quick lifting of the heart to God in a moment of real, actual faith in Him, will alter the situation in a moment.

God is still on His throne, and He can turn defeat into victory in a second of time, if we really trust Him.

“God is mighty! He is able to deliver;

Faith can victor be in every trying hour;

Fear and care and sin and sorrow be defeated

By our faith in God’s almighty, conquering power.

“Have faith in God, the sun will shine,

Though dark the clouds may be today;

His heart has planned your path and mine,

Have faith in God, have faith alway.”

“When one has faith, one does not retire; one stops the enemy where he finds him.”
—Marshal Foch

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So often, believers seek to turn down the heat in the furnace when the heat brings with it a moment of refining and the opportunity for victory. When the vicissitudes of life stroll into your paradise there should not be anxiety and despair, there should be a sense of resolve to execute a faith that literally uses the storm to elevate your altitude.

So many believers never soar because they misunderstand the storm. They see defeat in the storm; they see delay and disruption in the storm; they see heartache and struggle in the storm; so they acquiesce to its power and fold under the pressure. They spend more time attempting to alleviate the pressure that they miss the opportunity to be strengthened in it. They focus on circumvention more than empowerment and elevation.

Dr. Rick Wallace 

Believers must learn to infuse faith into their messy moments. There is a reason that James told us to count it all joy when we fall into various trials. Those fiery trials bear great opportunity for our faith to move God in our situation. There is nothing like telling God, “I trust You” by executing our faith in the midst of our mess.

God desires to use your struggles as the facilitator of your elevation process, but you must be willing to engage the struggle instead of despising it. The flame is meant to refine not destroy. It only destroys what is not pure. The fire never takes away anything that should be left behind. So, allow God to have his way while you are in the midst of the storm and you will definitely exit this storm a better believer than when you entered it. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace