THE JOURNEY OF FAITH: EMBRACING GOD’S PLANS AND GRASPING HIS PROMISES

Introduction

Hi, welcome to yet another Sunday special on The Mustard Seed Diaries blog. I hope this issue finds you well and that, once again, you had the most productive faith-filled week. We are glad to have you here with us today to share this moment and we pray that “if the Holy Spirit has led you here today, He will continue to lead you to take something out of this moment in Jesus’ Holy name, Amen 🙏🏽” .

A kind reminder

Before we get into it, just to serve as a quick reminder, last week, we talked about the life of Peter the Apostle and how his faith in Jesus Christ led him from being a poor fisherman in Capernaum who deserved nothing to becoming “Cephas”, the rock 🪨 on which the church ⛪️ was built. If you missed that episode of the blog, you can find it here.

Feedback from our readers

So after posting that article, and the one before that which was about the life of Father Abraham, we received feedback from some of you readers and listeners including my wife Diane, about the fact that it seemed we were losing the true north of the blog. Some of you said the blog was getting too “teachy” and did not hit you the same way the earlier ones did. Some said they wanted to read more about my faith journey and a bit less about the Patriarchs of Faith whom they knew already. For those of you who may not have expressed your opinions on this matter already and might feel like doing so now, you can leave a comment in the comments section below or you can hit me up 🤙🏽 on WhatsApp 📱 just to let me know your thoughts. Though, I insist that it is important to learn about those who have already tread the path before us, it remains one 1️⃣ of my goals to make this blog as engaging as possible and so I hereby commit to making the blog engaging by sharing more about my journey with you and how the Holy Spirit is growing my faith in Jesus Christ.

Grasping God’s promises to you

On that topic, remember the promise I told you about two weeks ago in the Patriarchs of Faith article, that God made to me and I was expecting Him to deliver on? Well, two weeks down the line, He has already begun to answer my prayer 🤲🏽 and what is amazing 🤩 is that He is doing so in a more awesome 👏🏽 hustle-free way than I expected. Don’t you just love ❤️ it when God does that? You pray 🙏🏽 for something, and He answers by making a promise to you, in your human nature, you get ahead of God and yourself making your plans as if you were in control of anything and then, He goes ahead and checks you: ”He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭46‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV. He reminds you that by your arm of flesh, you can never prevail and that in the Bible in‭‭ Psalms‬ ‭20‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV it says, and I paraphrase that: Though some may trust in chariots and some in horses 🐎 , we Believers ought to trust in the name of the Lord our God”. And so, what do you do next when God reveals this to you? 1️⃣ You go ahead and swallow humble pie 🥧, 2️⃣ you silence 🤐 the devil whispering over your shoulder, 3️⃣ you muster up your faith in the Lord and 4️⃣ wait patiently upon Him to do what only He can do. And then what does the Lord begin to do? He begins to make His face shine ✨ upon you and answer your prayers in more marvelous ways than you ever planned 🗺️ or expected. He reveals to you that indeed He IS God, and He WILL be exulted, and that He will share his glory, neither with you nor anyone else so that anyone can boast in their strength or wisdom. God is eternal and He will always be God, no matter the changing seasons and I give Him all the praise and glory!

I was supposed to be in church today to express my gratitude for the grace He has shown me but due to procrastination, yes, I admit it, during the week, I did not write ✍🏽 this article like I usually do a week before I post it but instead on this very Sunday 17th December during church hours, just so I can finish the article on time to be posted today. I know, some of you are going to judge 👨🏽‍⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️🧑🏾‍⚖️ me as ungrateful or unfaithful and you’re probably right to some extent because I should have been in church there is no excuse for that. But I know the God whom I serve and He inspired the very Bible I read that says in ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭100‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬ : “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” This passage in the Bible reminds me that though I am still on a journey and my faith may falter and fail at times, though I still have a lot of flaws because I’m only human and imperfect in so many ways, the mercies of the Lord are new every morning and His faithfulness continues through all generations. 

Embracing God’s plans for you

I did nothing to deserve God’s grace and yet He showed it to me anyway. And that is the story of salvation from the fall of Adam, through the finding of grace of Noah, through Abraham’s promise and covenant that descended through his generations to the law of Moses, to the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus our Savior, to His ascension up until the dispensation of grace with the coming of the Holy Spirit in which we live today, God has freely given His grace to all the nations of this earth 🌍 and salvation is ours, the only thing He asks is that we believe in Christ Jesus. 

Last week, I felt encouraged when a high school buddy of mine wrote to me after I had posted on the blog to tell me he was grateful for the post and that he needed it at that time. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude to the Holy Spirit because this is what we do it for, to touch lives for Christ. And so I don’t know 🤷🏽‍♂️ who today’s blog post is for, I don’t know who needs to read or hear this. I don’t know who needs to let go and let God, instead of planning away his or her life in human plans which reminds me of that gospel song 🎶. Our plans are like our very lives, flowers 🌺 quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, waves 🌊 tossed in the ocean, like a vapor in the wind. But God’s plans for us are eternal, they were founded before the foundations of the earth 🌎. God knew us before He even knit 🧶 our cells together in the womb 🤰🏾of our mothers. He holds our destinies in His hands to the point where He has numbered every single hair that is on our heads or lack thereof in some cases, am I right 😉? And so Dear Reader, trust in the Lord’s plans for you and lean not on your own understanding for the Bible says in ‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

‬‬The conclusion

The Lord has a plan for you, my brother 👦🏽 or sister 👧🏽, all it takes is to walk in faith with Jesus Christ today. The question remains, will you walk with Him?

Have a blessed 😇 Sunday, my friends, and see you next week 🙏🏽.