Week 15: What To Do Without Faith?

Week 15: What to Do Without Faith?

What if you have no faith in anything, what then?

Without faith, you are left to lean entirely on yourself or on other people. You never truly get a moment to rest, or to stop worrying. I know, because I lived that way for most of my life.

It is a stressful way to live. Always needing a handout. Always asking someone for help—or worse, staying silent because you don’t want to be a burden, and suffering quietly while trying to figure out how to survive. It is exhausting. It is hopeless. And when you have no faith, it feels like you carry every single weight alone.

I used to feel, like I had to quit jobs to find the next higher pay over and over, cut people down to rise up, and work myself up the ladder anyway possible, because I had to do it on my own. I had no one in my mind to help me. I was called stupid because I dropped out of highschool, I was called dumb because I had used drugs and drank as a teen and young adult, I was beaten down by a world I had hoped would help me. I was denied services by our government for food stamps even because I made a $1 over the limit. How could I get any help in this world.

Now, I was way to young, and pregnant with my first child, Michael. I had no clue how to raise a baby. But I knew this that he was my responsibility. I made the choice to “know” his father, and that choice brought me to this moment.

I remember one day, driving my literal rust bucket of a car which it had more rust than paint down the road. The radio was on, and Lauryn Hill’s song To Zion began to play. I didn’t know Jesus. I had never read the Bible. I had never been to church except for funerals. The only way I had used the name “Jesus Christ” up to that point was as a curse word. And yet… something still happened.

As I sang along, I started singing to my unborn son. I felt this overwhelming awareness that he had been chosen for me. That God Himself had chosen me to be his mother. It was not just a song any longer. It was a conversation I didn’t realize I was having with the Creator of the universe. Our Lord and Savior!

Without even understanding why, the name Michael I had heard from his future grandma on his dads side, one day when we were just chatting about what I would name my son, I knew it was for my son. I had never known anyone by that name, but in my spirit, I knew instantly that it was his name. And as I sang, I also funny enough didn’t know she was saying Mt Zion or Zion, I though I heard the word Inside, thinking she was referring to the babe inside the belly. Ha I honestly didn’t even realize the song was biblical. But that was because I knew nothing of God, not a single word or a single book in the Bible. No one had ever tried to teach me.

It is strange that even the few times I jumped on a bus to a church for sweets that came to my old neighborhood, I don’t recall them opening a bible ever. I remember they told me to repent and ask the Lord into my heart which I am sure I did but didn’t know what I was doing. I had no structure or understanding ever taught. But God will and can use anyone and anything to speak to us.

I didn’t run to church that day. I didn’t open a Bible. Honestly, I wouldn’t start going to church regularly until over 10 years later when I was at the end of my former marriage. But that didn’t matter, God had already started chasing me down.

And here is the truth:

God never stops pursuing you.

Even if you aren’t looking for Him. Even if you don’t believe. Even if you’ve pushed Him away. God won’t stop trying to show you who He is and that He loves you! He made you!

So if you are living without faith right now and relying on yourself, relying on other people for joy, peace, comfort, clarity, money, answers, I want to challenge you:

Stop.

Take a moment.

And ask God, “If You are real, show me.”

It is okay to ask Him to reveal Himself to you. He wants you to ask Him! I promise.

My Prayer for You Today

I pray that if you are struggling, breakthrough comes.

If you are disabled or sick, I pray the spirit of infirmity leaves your body now; in the name of Jesus be healed.

If you are weighed down with sadness, I pray God releases a joy in you that nothing and no one can take away. I declare and rebuke any spirit of depression now off of your life in the name of Jesus.

If you are in need of provision, I pray God brings increase into your life.

If your mind is trapped in confusion, frustration, I pray those chains break in the name of Jesus. That the spirit of lies are broken, and that Gods truth and only His be revealed to you now.

If you are struggling with addiction now, I pray the spirit of addiction, and the spirit of lies be broken off you now, I rebuke any spirit of addiction from you, I command it to leave your body, and your mind now in the name of Jesus.

I pray that you know, feel, hear, and acknowledge the grace He our Lord, is trying to give you just as I knew the day I heard Michael’s name spoken.

He is still calling you.

Even now.

If you want me to pray for you, email me at Eford@betteralife.org and I will send you a personal reply and prayer. If you are sick, in the hospital, in a wheelchair or bed and need me to come to you, let me know. I will come and pray over you directly. If I cannot get to where you are, I will be happy to call and pray for you too over the phone. There is no distance to great for God.