Step forward in Faith

Published June 7, 2012

By Deborah Negron

Jabez did not deny his reality. He simply refused to accept it. His name meant sorrow, or born for sorrow. Yet he embraced the type of faith that asks God to change the inevitable…to change the course of destiny…to change his reality into the one God could provide him with. He saw his exisitence and claimed God’s ability to change our circumstances and give us a greater reward than what the world expects.

He embarked on the kind of faith that says in spite of what my eyes see I claim a better outcome.Today I spoke to the most wise human being I have ever known. She transcends human capacity for she is full of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom only God can provide. Yes, I am biased perhaps, but it’s my mom.
She stated that the children of Israel had to cross a body of water second time. First the original group who had left with Moses crossed the Red Sea as they left Egypt. But then their children who were the ones who entered the promised land with Joshua, these too had to have their own genuine experience with the God who meets our impossibilities with his miraculous interventions.

These Israelites needed their own relationship with the God of their fathers. Yet God did not part the river Jordan before they walked. He asked them to step into the water before they saw the waters part.In essence, God did not perform the miracle first as he had done with their parents. He first required them to have faith by stepping into the the impossibility then he worked the miracle. Hebrews tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of that which is not seen as of yet. Christ in his new covenant expects us to have faith first in. Him…he then transforms our lives.

Wow he wants us to believe he is able to do exceedingly above that which we can imagine. Mine eyes may not yet see what he will bring to pass in my life, but I believe he will work all things out for my good. Even the crooked places he will make straight that I may grow from glory to glory. He will be glorified in and through the life of all who dare to pray as Jabez prayed. Lord enlarge my coasts… make me a blessing and not a curse in spite of who I am.David wrote, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. This is to say in spite of what, who, where I am, make me anew. Paul later taught that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us….even the impossible can be accomplished. Lord bless me, that I may bless others in Jesus name!