Do Not Be Afraid; Only Believe!

"It doesn't matter where you are right now; God has moments of 

favor for you too. You may not be able to figure it out, but that's okay. 

That's not your job. Your job is to believe. God's already figured it out."

Joel Osteen - It's Your Time

This particular quote struck a chord with me. We so often have a tendency to attempt to figure everything out on our own. We think that we can plan our lives and work our way into the calling that God has on our life and then when things don't plan out easily we get discouraged. It reminded me of the scripture in Proverbs:

"A man’s heart plans his way,

But the Lord directs his steps."

Proverbs 16:9

Sometimes we get so busy planning our own way we forget that it is ultimately God's job to direct our steps, to figure it all out. In fact He has it all figured out already we just need to learn to trust Him. 

It's so easy to get discouraged and impatient. It's so easy to think that we should be further than we are or to start questioning whether we missed our opportunity. But even if we did miss an opportunity God is a God of redemption. He wants to redeem the time that you missed! We just need to learn to take to heart the instructions that Jesus gave Jairus:

"Do not be afraid; only believe..."

Luke 8:50

Jairus was already stretched in his faith in believing that Jesus would be able to heal his daughter but before Jesus could even get there he received the report that his daughter had died. At that moment everything seemed hopeless and Jairus could no longer see a way out of his situation and Jesus responds simply "Do not be afraid; only believe..." I find it interesting that Jesus doesn't go into a long message into how he has authority over death. He doesn't start preaching about the power of the Holy Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit. He says simply "...only believe..." 

In other words Jesus is telling Jairus, there is no need for you to understand how it's going to happen just believe that I can take care of this situation. He might be saying the same thing to you. Stop trying to figure out how Jesus is going to turn your situation around and just trust that He will do it! Whatever it is that you are going through Jesus is saying simply:

Do not be afraid; only believe!