When Your Faith Becomes Complacent, Prepare for God To Shake Things Up
For the past three years my family and I were living in North Carolina. It was a beautiful place. It was where we got married, gave our lives to Christ—together, and where God began to truly work in and through us. It wasn't always easy there, but for the most part it was peaceful. It was comfortable.
Two months ago, God spoke to my husband and told him it was time to move back to Illinois. I can't begin to tell you the sadness that overcame me. The thought of leaving everything and just picking up and going back to a place completely the opposite of where I was. Back to a place where there would be no peace. No comfort. My heart was broken. I questioned God many times, "Why God, would you want this for me and my family?"
Why would God want that for us? Why does He remove us from where we are most comfortable and place us in the most uncomfortable circumstances? Because God did not create us to be comfortable. He didn't call us to a life of complacency. He created us to be used for His purpose. This is a world filled with so many that are lost. Many of whom are people that we love, our very own family and friends.
Although God removes us from our place of coziness into a place of chaos; He does it with the promise of something better to come. And we given a foretaste of this in His Word.
"For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for good and not for disaster, to give you hope and a future in your final outcome." (Jeremiah 29:11)
Yes, where I lived I was comfortable. But I was also complacent. Complacent in my surroundings, and complacent in my faith. My faith was in danger of becoming useless.
There was work to be done. I had to stop asking God why, and start asking Him what.
"What do you want me to do God?"
"How do you want to use me in this situation?"
Trust requires that we may never have the answers to our questions. God's ways are not our ways, but His ways are always the best. He just wants you to trust Him, just like Abraham. God told Him, "Trust Me with this first step, because it is best for you to go where I lead you" (Exodus 12:1). All over the Bible we are shown so many stories of radical trust, and radical faith. And in the end God always kept His promises.
That promise remains today.
God may have removed you from your place of "Elim," your place of complacency. Understand that God is not some cosmic killjoy, but instead, a loving Father who wants only the best for His children. He wants us to constantly cultivate a deeper reliance in Him, His promises and His Will for our lives. And to do that He can't always give us what we want. He teaches us to trust and have faith in Him, and He tests us to see if we will remain obedient in our darkest moments.
Will we praise Him in our valleys and in our mountaintops?
God has a plan for your life and you will be blessed when you obey Him. But a place of obedience can also be a place of discomfort, and vexation. Are you prepared?
The years I spent in North Carolina, are the years God was carrying me through in my faith, just like He may be doing for you in your life. But today, He is is showing you and I the way to go and the direction to walk in. Although He has been carrying us through all this way, the time has come when the carrying is over and He says, "Daughter, now walk."
Doing God's Will doesn't guarantee a comfortable life. But should we accept only the good things from the hand of God and never anything bad? (Job. 2:10)
Have you become too complacent or comfortable in your faith?
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