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CHAPTER 1
Faith
There is nothing more exciting than a new idea, perspective, or goal that you are so passionate about that it stirs up childlike enthusiasm, just waiting to be nurtured into existence. However, sometimes the very ideas and goals that take the longest to nurture, tweak, and produce are those that are so ingrained and deeply rooted on the inside of us that it is almost painful waiting for them to come into fruition.
As one Southern Christian saying goes, "It's like fire shut up in the bones." These are the kind of dreams that we keep stirring, nurturing, and watering, no matter how long it takes to see them come true. But we have to maintain balance in thought and perspective for our goals and ambitions without being anxious or excessive.
Nevertheless, there is a catch. Yes, the waiting. Waiting is some serious business. We wait for our vision to happen. Waiting keeps us up at night, wondering, Will my dreams ever materialize? Yes, the waiting is hidden inside — or should I say stretched by a character trait called patience?
Patience is an attribute that some hate and others lack, but we all need to master it fully if we ever want to experience all that God has for us. Specifically, our seasons of waiting challenge and lead us to inquire if our ideas and goals are realistic when we cannot see a timeline for our achievements or end objectives.
But how do we master waiting with patience? How do we wait patiently while we are waiting on God to release what we are believing for? One word, faith. Our faith stretches us emotionally and cognitively, illuminating if we have the tenacity to let patience do its greater work within us. Faith brings us to a place of greater self-control, mindfulness, and even grace under pressure.
And while we are letting patience do its greater work within us, we wait patiently through faith for a mate, the chance to start a family, career opportunities, and our hopes and dreams to come true. Earnestly speaking, to understand the context of patience and faith is to have realized the beauty of God at work in us and through us.
Yet when most people think of faith, they think of it as an attribute or characteristic that only few have the pleasure of having or experiencing in life. However, everyone has had to exercise faith in his or her life at one time or another. In fact, Matthew 17:20 (KJV) says, "And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."
Faith in the smallest measure helps us to keep believing that the thing we wished, prayed, and toiled for will happen. In fact, faith helps us to keep going even when circumstances seem to be telling us that we are not making progress. Faith also blesses us with the assurance that the waiting period had and still does have a purpose. Faith helps us to keep working on our goals, ambitions, and talents, creatively watering our seeds of inspiration. Finally, faith is the rock that helps us wait in assurance that what we hope for will manifest itself in fullness and truth and be all that we have prayed for.
Faith seals the foundation of hope on the inside of us — inside our hearts, our minds, and our souls.
CHAPTER 2
Hope
When we think of our life's aspirations, we anticipate that our goals will yield to our faith and hope. But what is the classification, or better yet, how can we define hope? Hope as defined in NIV Zondervan dictionary and concordance is "the anticipation of something good." Therefore, if we anticipate something good happening in our lives, that is, an attribute that is pure and can leave the world a better place, we should seek after it and pursue it prayerfully and wholeheartedly. We must keep our hope focused and well intentioned so we may see that which we envisioned now realized in fullness (Zondervan 2011).
So how do we have and maintain hope while we are waiting on God to move on our behalf? We anticipate and wait, putting our efforts, intentions, and actions toward what is good and uplifting to our mind, body, soul, and spirit.
Essentially we cannot have hope without possessing a grain of faith toward what is to come. The key is maintaining an understanding that, even though what we have hoped for is not happening right now, it will occur, if it is according to God's will for our lives.
The beauty of waiting with faith and hope is that we have a great opportunity to see God's power within small victories and blessings. Likewise, oftentimes God uses small victories and blessings to bring the fullness of what we are hoping for into manifestation. In fact, these things teach us how to master something, practice self-control, and be good stewards over what is given to us.
Essentially, if we can practice and master self-control over the little things, we can be trusted with much, a critical context as noted in Luke 16:10 (NIV), "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."
Our solace is the confidence we gain as we are faithful in the small things, giving us reassurance in the process and increasing our faith and capacity to hope on a larger scale. This confidence helps us know that, with diligence and tenacity, we will be able to accomplish what we hope for in due season.
CHAPTER 3
Love
Love is beautiful. Love is goodness. Love is simple and complex yet an unequivocal soul-stirring emotion that whisks deep down within every human being. Love brings life into our hearts and comfort as we connect to humanity, and it even helps us see with more clarity. Love is a gift that God, the creator of love, has bestowed upon us and put within us, for God is love.
Thus, the spirit of love is a natural and innate emotion, a feeling that flows in and through us without overexertion or extra effort. At its core, love is an unrestricted feeling that is trustworthy in its natural state, and it should be expressed freely and honestly. In fact, 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (NIV) eloquently paints a perfect picture of what love is.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
There is, however, a misaligned objection to love when complication or conflict arises, prohibiting us from experiencing our natural tendency to love, feel, and connect. Thus, in our inability to connect, we become detached and even divided from companions, partnerships, and godly alliances that are intended to make us better and stronger people — persons of integrity, virtue, character, and strength.
The purpose in love or loving relationships should not be for the sake of quantification, amassing large numbers, but to build relationships with friends, companions, and allies who are healthy, supportive, authentic, and true to our natural capacity to love and exist. Our existence should assert who we are without being overbearing, overpowering, or disruptive to the natural identity of the ones we love. In essence, the quality of our relationships should be based upon genuine connectivity, companionship, and understanding of each other's differences.
Our unique identities shape our experiences in life with the people, places, and opportunities that are given to us. Our companionships and alliances should be those that see beyond our faults and make way toward progress as we evolve into a higher inclination of ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically as well as in our accomplishments. However, our need to maintain the origin of our inner self should not be compromised or abandoned, as the root of our identity keeps us humble and compassionate toward society and others' experiences.
Therefore, as we embrace the embodiment of love and its coexistence with faith and hope, we see that love is the most powerful force in the universe and that it bridges a divide in the human experience among our families, marriages, children, and close friends. Love causes us to support and want to see the very best in and for those we love and compels us to correct them gently, restoring them to self.
Without a doubt, love is prevailing and helps us heal and restore our inner self, our best self, so we may see and think clearly. Most of all, love brings people back together in a place where there was once division. Love's existence and vivacity within our hearts and souls helps us continue to believe in purity and truth. They allow us to believe in the good of the world and people. Most of all, in the body of love's existence, when it thrives within us, it helps us overcome pain, chaos, and confusion because love conquers all.
When we can see things, people, places, and opportunities through the eyes of love, we make way for progress. In everything we do, what we go through, how we dream, and how we make progress in life, it all circles back to love.
The Circle Back to and Healing Power of Love
In our brokenness, love heals us. When we are disappointed, love lifts us. When we have been rejected, love makes us feel accepted. When we are angry, love calms us. When we are lonely, love makes us feel cherished. When we lose hope, love restores our hope. When we feel lost, love helps us find ourselves again. Love is our greatest medicine. Love is our greatest treatment. Love is our greatest antidote.
Ultimately, feeling loved helps us embrace the person God made us to be. Therefore, when we feel loved naturally and authentically, we thrive, we are joyful, we are peaceful, and we are happy. The most important factor is that we must be sure that, when we are being loved or even embraced, we are being accepted for who we truly are and not for what others want us to be. Per se, those who authentically love us end up loving us as our best selves in wholeness.
CHAPTER 4
The Capacity of Our Faith for Love
When we think of the size of our faith, we contemplate the scale or measure in which we have the ability to believe in something. It is the measurement in which we are able to focus on an outcome with optimism, assurance, and works with a sincere belief that we will harvest something in the end. In truth, we only need a small amount of faith for something as pure as the introduction of a loving relationship or friendship. We just need a simple measure of optimism that we will meet a special someone who can bring authentic connection and companionship into our lives.
When thinking of our measure of faith for love, I can remember in my early twenties when I hoped for companionship with someone who could share in my interests. However, at the time, circumstances did not indicate such a person would walk into my life. Soon enough though, life showed me a different tune or melody. Life was showing me that, in fact, the companionship I had always hoped for in a mate would appear. Then it did. He did.
The amazing thing is when we believe in God for something in which we believe for does not always happen in the way we anticipate. Oddly enough, I met my life partner and companion on an elevator on my way to lunch, in the strangest of places. This is another indication that God does not move on our behalf in the ways that we assume that he will.
However, we can be certain that, with faith, he will give us someone or something that will encourage emotional stability, health, wellness, joy, and growth. Though this does not go without saying that there will not be complications along the way that cause us to assess our virtues and the foundation of our beliefs.
Once we have established what we truly believe, then we are ready to receive that which we believe in, yielding fruit in our lives as we let faith do its greater work and produce growth within us. If we exercise our faith, as small as it may be, it has the ability to produce fruit in our lives when we exert energy toward optimistic thinking and assure hope that something good, even great, will happen.
The faith I was holding on to for the things I believed in manifested itself in a way I had not anticipated. That day on that elevator, I met my husband, who I have now been with for fifteen years. Though we have been met with challenges along the way, our growth together, both painstaking and in joy, have helped us reflect on ourselves, our ambitions, and what we are hoping to accomplish for our family and futures together.
Through that experience, among others, I have found that those whom God places in our lives and us in theirs form mutually beneficial partnerships that promote spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth and accomplishment. These types of relationships and companionships, although not perfect in nature, are companionships of love. In fact, these companionships reflect love by virtue of their existence, hence encouraging personal and spiritual growth without forcing us to lose our personality and identity, which essentially makes us unique individuals.
This uncovering of faith, hope, and love in the foundation of our relational experience is also interconnected to our pace forward in life, showing us that God loves us through other people and each other. For me, the aphorism "God loving me through you" sums it up.
CHAPTER 5
A Faith That Moves Mountains
As we have seen in the previous chapter, our faith is the foundation and the rock on which our hopes, dreams, and ambitions are built. In fact, the size of our faith helps us remove the mental roadblocks, the barricades that perhaps have us on mundane paths, that hinder us from making progress in life.
However, this does not mean that what we are doing or are purposed to do is ineffective or outside of our calling in life. It just indicated that sometimes we need to reevaluate the method by which we accomplish our goal or fulfill our life purpose. In reality, sometimes we just need to break the monotony of our normal routine by simply reinventing the method by which we fulfill our purpose, passion, or ambitions. This keeps us motivated in our gifts, abilities, and talents.
This change of pace should not cause us to forfeit our authentic identities, but essentially challenge us to look within ourselves to use our innate talents that we have been gifted with in another way, perhaps more creatively and, yes, even in simplicity.
In order to do so, we must start with faith, an attribute that says I am talented, gifted, and resourceful enough to continue with my life's purpose and goals. Then to keep our inspiration going, we must know that, if we look within, we can see that we most often already have all the tools, resources, and people we need properly placed in our path to help us get there.
Likewise, as our faith begins to increase, we find that the mental roadblocks, that is, the mountains, old perceptions, and limitations, begin to move out of our way, helping us fulfill our purpose and goals with greater determination, impact, and effectiveness.
This process is really us tapping into our God-given potential, the talents that are innate to us, come to us naturally, and are performed with grace. Periodically there will be necessity to refine, or even hone, our gifts and talents through experiential learning of new methods that have been adapted to our objective and cause. The consistency of our faith and ability to tap into our God-given potential will be inherent in our focus and ability to remain in peace as our new ideas and flow of creativity are beginning to breathe new life.
The focal point, however, is continually activating our faith by watering it with positive thoughts and exercising it through our efforts and works. Thus, it is always helpful to preserve motivating resources that inspire us and keep us motivated, a source that encourages us to continue in faith with fortitude and diligence until we see God's promises manifest in our lives.
This type of motivation can come from positive affirmations, stillness, positivity, and uplifting relationships that are purposed to help us keep our light, youthfulness, passion, purpose, and, most importantly, empathy alive, whereas keeping us accountable to humility without discouraging our progress or faith.
This is the faith that moves mountains and builds a bridge of hope that leads to progress.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Circle Back to Love"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Brenda L. Turner-Miller.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
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